


You'll Never Sink When You Are With Me

by nauticaltatts



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Grey's Anatomy AU, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, hospital au, larry stylinson - Freeform, they are surgeons, zerrie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:56:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticaltatts/pseuds/nauticaltatts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: "The Dead Sea" by The Lumineers</p>
<p>Louis Tomlinson is the head of neurology and Harry Styles is an intern in surgery at the King's Cross Hospital in London.  Harry is hopelessly in love with him, and he shouldn't be.</p>
<p>or, a Grey's Anatomy au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to make a Grey's Anatomy au with Harry as Meredith and Louis as Derek because I love that show and I love them, so why not.
> 
> Note: Grey's Anatomy© owns most (if not all) of the script and ideas in this story. I am not in any way taking possession of that.

The sunlight poured in from the broad windows, reflecting over the nearly empty room. Cardboard boxes were sprawled out nearly everywhere, as well as random furniture pieces spread about, and two people were asleep in the center of the mess. The one sleeping on the couch snored a little and woke up, suddenly alert. He looked around and immediately became aware of the fact that he was… in fact… naked. He looked down to the ground below him and saw a massive lump underneath a dark blue blanket. Well, clearly, it wasn’t just any lump. It was another man… who was also naked. Figures.  
The one with the long curly brown hair jolted and stood up, realizing he needed to be somewhere. Still naked, he decided he needed something to cover himself with. So, he tore the blanket off the other man, revealing his bare back and a bum… a rather nice bum, if he had to say so himself. The other man simply snored in his sleep and the one with curly hair felt bad about leaving him so exposed. As if to make matters better, he took a pillow from the couch he was just asleep on and tossed it on to his bum. That should solve it.

In the meantime, he took the blanket and wrapped it around his waist, only exposing his chest and arms which were both covered with a variety of tattoos. So was the other man, from what he could tell.

Just as he slowly turned around to walk away, the other man sat up. “Well… good morning,” he greeted tiredly in his thick British accent. Hesitantly, the curly haired lad turned around and saw that the man, now standing up, had ocean blue eyes and dark brown hair which, once slicked back, had fallen messily over his face. The thing that bothered him the most was how attractive he found that.

“So… this is…” The blue-eyed man began as he started to dress himself, but was cut off.

“Awkward? Embarrassing? I know. And I’m sorry but… you have to go,” he rushed.

“Hey, what’s the matter? Why don’t you just come back down here and we can pick up from where we left off?” The stranger replied with a devlish smirk and raised his eyebrows.

“No, really, you have to go. I’m already late for my first day of work, and I don’t want to get fired…” He sighed. “Listen, I’m going to take a shower and when I come back down… you won’t be here. Okay? So goodbye… erm…” He stuck his hand out awkwardly as if going for a handshake, and quickly realized he didn’t even know the man’s name.

“Louis,” the blue-eyed man said, returning the greeting politely.

“Harry,” said the one with the curly hair.

“Nice meeting you,” Louis said with a grin.

-

Shit, was Harry’s first thought as soon as he walked through the hospital doors. He was late. The group of interns were already gathered in the O.R. without him, being lectured to by the chief of surgery. He snuck in silently, hoping not to be caught, and was successful in doing so.

“I’m Doctor Liam Payne,” announced a tall, muscular man with short brown hair and large brown eyes, “and I’m here to tell you what this internship program is really all about. Here you all are today, hopeful. A month ago you were in medical school being taught by doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life.”

All the interns looked around the room, patiently waiting. Anxious. Nervous. Excited. Too many emotions at once.

“You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition.”

With that, Harry glanced around the room, meeting eye contact with all of the fellow students. Oh, he was so screwed for this.

“Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. Your arena. How well you play? Well, that’s up to you.”

-

In the locker room, interns were spread out over the benches, pulling on their white coats over their grey uniforms and stethoscopes, waiting to be called on by their residents.

As Harry was getting his equipment on, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see a fairly tall blonde haired man with blue eyes. “Hey. Hi. I’m Niall. Niall Horan… we met at the mixer? You had on, erm… these long black shoes and a white tie…” He had an obvious thick Irish accent, signaling he definitely wasn’t from around here.

Harry just nodded, not really sure where he was going with this, but pretended to understand. “Oh, God… now you guys think I’m gay,” Niall complained to the people sitting on the bench nearby, who just giggled. “I’m… I’m not, I swear.”

Harry chuckled. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay, mate. I am.”

Niall’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh. I’m… sorry if I offended you. But, that’s not really the point I was trying to make… my resident is Thirlwall. What about you?”

“Did somebody say Thirlwall?” Someone else in the room asked. It was a woman with vivid blonde hair and shiny blue eyes. “I’m, uh, Perrie Edwards. He’s my resident, too. I hear some people call him the Nazi.”

In that moment, Harry slammed his own locker shut. One of the doctors called out, “Horan, Edwards, Styles, Nelson. End of the hall.”

Anxious, the four hurried over to the counter where a slim lady with long brown hair was standing, jotting something down with a pen. The interns glanced at each other, confused.

“I thought the Nazi would be a guy,” Niall stated.

“I thought the Nazi would be… the Nazi,” Harry added on.

The other girl who had joined them rolled her eyes. “Chill out guys… she could be really nice. You never know.” She flipped back her long light brown hair and smiled.

“So I’m guessing you’re the model that they assigned,” Perrie grunted, almost in disgust, and the rest of them laughed.

They approached the woman at the counter and the model struck out her hand in a friendly manner. “Hi. I’m Jessica Nelson, but everyone calls me Jesy.”

Dr. Thirlwall turned around slowly and stared blankly at Jesy’s hand for a while, then into her eyes. Once she had looked for long enough, she spoke. “I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one. Don’t bother sucking up. I already hate you, that won’t change.” She pointed to the desk. “Trauma protocol. Phone lists. Pagers. Nurses will page you.”

They grabbed their items quickly and rushed to catch up with her as she began walking around. “Rule number two. You answer every page at a run. Not a walk, a run! Three. If I’m sleeping, don’t wake me unless your patient is dying. And four. The patient better not be dead when I get there, because not only will you have killed someone, but you would have woken me up for no good reason.” After turning the corner to the next hallway, she whirled around to face them. “Are we clear?”

“Whoa, she’s hot when she’s mad,” came an audible grunt from Niall, and Jesy and Perrie nudged him with their shoulders, trying their best not to laugh.

Harry raised his hand slowly. “Erm… Dr. Thirlwall. You said you had five rules. That was only… four.”

She shot him a death glare but before she could yell at him her pager started beeping. “Right, rule number five! When I move, you move. Let’s go!”

She pushed past the other doctors and nurses in the hallway, yelling at them. “Get out of my way, people, we’ve got an ambulance coming in!”

Out in the lot of the King’s Cross Hospital an ambulance pulled up to the door. Dr. Thirlwall and her interns pulled on their gloves and protective equipment and eyed anxiously at the scene unveiling before them. “What do we have here?”

“Female, 15 years old. Her name’s Alexis Jones. She’s been having new onset seizures. IV was lost in route and she started seizing when we pulled up,” spoke an EMT personnel as multiple people worked together to roll her cot out of the vehicle.

“Alright, get her on her side! Jesy, ten milligrams diazepam i.m. Styles… the white lead is on the right! A large boar IV… don’t let the blood haemolyse. Let’s go, people, let’s go!”

It was nerve-wracking and fast-paced, but Jesy finally injected the diazepam and Alexis stopped seizing and collapsed back on her cot. In that moment, an attractive tan-skinned doctor with jet black hair walked into the room.

“Looks like a wet fish on dry land here,” he spoke, smiling, and scratched at the stubble around his chin.

“Absolutely, Dr. Malik,” Dr. Thirlwall responded, exhaling deeply. She turned back to her interns and sighed. “Perrie, you’re on labs. Niall – patient work ups. Harry, get Alexis for a CT. She’s your responsibility now.”

“Wait… what about me?” Jesy asked, perplexed.

Dr. Thirlwall looked a bit taken aback for a second, but then held in a smirk. “Oh, you? Honey, you’re doing rectal exams.”

At that, Jesy scoffed in absolute disgust and the others exited the room, struggling to contain their laughter.

-

It was lunchtime, and none of them were hungry except for Niall. The three of them, minus Harry, sat together, crowded at a small table while Niall just ate his ham sandwich and salad. He kept offering Jesy something who just refused every time.

“You should really eat something,” he suggested, gesturing to her with an apple in his hand.

“I can’t,” she said, paling and looking queasier than ever. “You try eating after 17 rectal exams. The Nazi hates me.”

Niall chuckled. “You shouldn’t worry about that so much. It should only get better from here, I think.” He took another bite from his sandwich. “Hey, does anyone know where Harry is?”

They shrugged when, as if reading their minds, he sat down at their table, food tray practically clattering on top of it. He groaned and pushed back his thick hair, breathing deeply. “Alexis Jones is a pain in the arse. I wheeled her round in that wheel chair for hours and got lost, multiple times, only to have her complain to me about how she missed her fucking beauty pageant! Do you know how much I DON’T care about that?”

In frustration, he poured his dressing messily over his salad and took a bite. Realizing all eyes were on him, he looked up. “What?”

No one had the chance to answer, though, because coming towards them was Dr. Malik. He was grinning ear to ear, clearly excited about something. Standing before their lunch table, he spoke.

“Good afternoon, interns. I just thought I should share this news personally with you… As you know the honor of performing the first surgery is rewarded to the intern that shows the most promise. Since I’m running the O.R. today, I get to make that decision. So…” He patted Niall firmly and happily on the back. “Niall Horan.”

“Erm… me?” Niall asked, obviously stunned. The others sitting there looked just as, in fact maybe more shocked than he was. Perrie simply rolled her eyes.

“You’ll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations, Horan.” Satisfied, Dr. Malik walked away and left the others to just stare at him in awe.

“Did… he say me?” Niall demanded, still in disbelief.

-

Now back in Alexis’ room, her parents bombarded Harry with many questions. The worst part was that he himself could not answer all of them.

“Will Lexie need an operation?” Mrs. Jones asked nervously.

“If so, how extensive will that operation be?” Mr. Jones demanded.

“Erm… I. I’m not the person to be asking those questions to. I’ll… uh… go find the Doctor.” Harry felt stupid and embarrassed as he stepped out of the room and rushed to find Dr. Thirlwall. Luckily she was just in the waiting room, once again filling some information out on her clipboard.

“What is it?” She inquired without even looking up. Could she really just feel his presence from there?

“Erm. Alexis’ parents have questions. They arrived here just now. Do you talk to them or does Dr. Malik?” Harry held his breath and hoped he wouldn’t get yelled at. Yes, it was his first day as an intern, but so far he wasn’t feeling so smart.

“Hm, well, Malik’s off the case now. She belongs to the new attending now. Dr. Tomlinson. He’s right over there,” she said, flashing a small smile, then taking her notes and walked away.

Harry was about to walk up to Dr. Tomlinson but stopped abruptly, face paling. Oh, no. He couldn’t be. Could he? The slicked back brown hair, captivating blue eyes… it was the man from the night before.

He couldn’t do this, he decided, and after a long moment of staring, absolutely horrified, fled the room back the way he came. The last thing he saw was Dr. Tomlinson do a double take and look up from his clipboard to meet his gaze, clearly surprised as well. He had no time to face him, and sped around the corner.

All of a sudden, in an empty hallway, he felt a strong grip around his arm and was pulled into the nearest stairway. The door shut loudly behind him.

“Hey!” Harry gasped, and then saw who it was. “Oh… Dr. Tomlinson.”

Louis smirked mischievously at him and crossed his arms. “Dr. Tomlinson? This morning it was Louis. Now it’s Dr. Tomlinson.”

“Dr. Tomlinson… we should pretend like it never happened,” Harry responded hesitantly.

“What never happened? You sleeping with me last night? Or you throwing me out this morning?” He questioned, extremely amused. “Because both are fond memories I would like to hold onto.”

“No,” Harry said, a little more seriously. “There will be no memories. We’re not those guys from the bar who hooked up.”

Louis just stood there smiling.

“This… can’t exist. You understand that, right?” Harry finally finished, eyeing him firmly.

Louis nodded and shrugged. “You took advantage of me and now you want to forget about it.”

Harry gaped at him, speechless. “I did not…”

“I was drunk, vulnerable and good looking and you took advantage of me,” he interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest.

Harry couldn’t help but smile slightly. “Okay… I was the one who was drunk and you are not that good looking.” Even he knew that was a blatant lie. Louis had to be one of the best looking people he’d met; even being tipsy that night, he had felt an instant attraction. But now he had to push that deep down inside of him and focus on his job.

“Maybe not today. But last night? Last night I was pretty good looking. I had my red shirt on. That’s my good looking shirt. So… you took advantage,” Louis retorted cockily.

“I did not.”

Louis just continued to smile. “Wanna take advantage again? How about Friday night?”

Harry almost wanted to say yes, but was entirely stricken with shock. “No. You’re an attending. And I’m your intern.”

Louis looked at Harry’s lips in a warm and… inviting king of way. Like he would just lean down and kiss them if he could. And as bad as it sounded, Harry really, really wanted him to. He would take him up on that offer, but a wave of reality washed over him.

“Christ… stop looking at me like that,” Harry murmured, annoyed.

“Like what?”

Reluctantly, Harry answered. “Like you’ve seen me naked.”

Louis was smirking even more now, like he couldn’t help it.

“Dr. Tomlinson… this is inappropriate,” Harry said, turning away. “Has that ever occurred to you?”

With that, Harry left the stairwell, leaving Louis nothing but confused and a little intrigued.

-

It was four in the afternoon. Their first day on the job was close to over. Of course, Niall got to scrub in on the surgery so the rest of the interns got to watch from the balcony. No one was sure of what to expect.

Dr. Malik and Niall stood over the patient on the operating table. Malik was giving directions to Niall one by one.

“More pressure. The human flesh is a tough shell. Dig in,” Dr. Malik spoke, and Niall obeyed by making a small incision.

“Pick-ups,” Niall ordered things one after the other. “Clamp,” and then, “I’m there!”

On the viewing balcony above, the interns gasped. One of them cried in awe, “Damn, he got the peritoneum open.”

Harry smiled to himself. “I told you he would pull it off.”

“Scalpel,” Niall continued distantly. With that, he carefully and successfully removed the appendix. “Appendix is out,” he announced proudly. The interns cheered.

“Not bad,” Dr. Malik congratulated, impressed. “Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the cecum. And simultaneously pull up on the per strings but be careful not to…”

Just then there was a loud snap, and Niall glanced down at what he had done in horror. He had broken the strings.

“…Break them,” Dr. Malik finished. Calmly but confidently he spoke. “You ripped the cecum. Got a bleeder. Filling with stool. What do you do now?”

Stricken with panic, Niall stuttered and struggled to find the answer. “Erm… ah…”

“Think. Start the suction and start digging for those per strings before your patent bleeds to death. Someone get him a clamp!” He shouted to a random doctor in the room.

“BP’s dropping,” a doctor proclaimed.

All the interns in the balcony sat patiently and quietly, probably praying for Niall. “C’mon, c’mon, Niall,” Harry whispered so nobody else could hear. He so didn’t want one of his only friends here to get fired for killing a person.

“He’s choking,” Harry heard Perrie say about the patient in the room.

Niall still wasn’t saying or doing anything. Dr. Malik was getting more impatient by the second. “Today, Horan! Pull your balls out of your back pocket. Let’s go!” He did not respond. He was frozen to the spot. “What are you waiting for? Suction!”

The heart monitor began beeping rapidly. Everyone in the room was silent. After a short moment, Dr. Malik sighed. The other doctors tried to warn him and get his attention.

“We’re getting too low, people.”

“Dr. Malik.”

Voices around the room yelled out and time seemed to stop. The patient was dying and Niall still couldn’t figure out what to say or do. Finally, Dr. Malik shoved him out of the way.

“Get out of the way. Pansy ass idiot. Someone get him out of here. Suction. Clamp.” Malik continued to perform the surgery and Niall was forced roughly out of the room.

-

Harry entered a post-op ward only to find a cocky intern talking with a nurse. He had messy blue hair which stuck out at odd angles and it was obvious he had an Australian accent since he was speaking rather loudly.

“Patient in 4B’s go post-op pneumonia. Let’s start the antibiotics,” the intern ordered.

“Are you sure that’s the right diagnosis?” The nurse asked softly, trying to sound polite.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m only an intern, right? Here’s an idea for you, why don’t you go to medical school for four years and then let me know if it’s the right diagnosis. She’s short of breath. She’s got a fever. She’s post-op. Start the antibiotics,” he responded, and it was clear to Harry that this guy didn’t like to mess around.

The nurse huffed angrily and stormed away. The intern saw Harry and approached him. “God, I hate nurses. I’m Michael,” he introduced himself. “You’re with the Nazi right?”

Harry didn’t answer that direct question and instead tried to explain what he thought was the patient’s problem. “She may not have pneumonia, you know? She could be splinting or have a PE.”

Michael looked through some of his charts and pretended not to hear what Harry had just said. “Yeah, yeah. I know what I’m doing, alright? Don’t go butting in on my patients.”

Just in time, and almost thankfully, Harry’s pager went off. He narrowed his eyes at Michael and rushed off.

-

Harry assumed that Alexis was just having another minor issue; she probably wanted to take a stroll around the hospital again to talk about her fucking pageant and everything else in the world she had to complain about. He walked slowly up the staircase and into the hall. He ambled towards the room but quickly noticed that other doctors and nurses were scrambling around to get there. Alexis was having an actual emergency.

He ran in and immediately saw that Alexis was seizing on the bed. His vision suddenly became blurry and he wasn’t sure of what to do. This was his patient. She could die under his watch.

“What took you so long?” Yelled one of the nurses.

Before he could answer another male doctor called out above all the commotion. “She’s having multiple grand mall seizures. How do you want to proceed?”

Harry just watched, standing completely still. He felt like Niall back in that O.R. He didn’t know what to say or do. Alexis continued seizing.

“Dr. Styles, are you listening to me? She’s got diazepam. Two milligrams morazopam. I just gave her a second dose. Dr. Styles you need to tell us what you want to do.” Still no response from him. “Dr. Styles!”

Harry shook his head and finally snapped out of it. He needed to do this. He had to save her. Rapidly he grabbed Alexis’ chart. The nurses continued and struggled to hold her down.

“Okay so she’s full on the morazopam?” Harry asked, flipping the pages back and forth.

Another nurse answered this time. “She’s had four milligrams.”

“And you paged Dr. Thirlwall and Dr. Tomlinson?” He demanded.

“Yes.”

“The morazopam is not working,” one of the doctors yelled.

“Phenolbarbitol. Load her with phenolbarbitol,” Harry ordered.

One of the nurses injected it into Alexis’ IV. “Pheno’s in,” they said.

“No change.”

“You paged Dr. Tomlinson?” Harry repeated.

“I just told you.”

“Well page him again! Stat,” he commanded.

“What do you wanna do?” the doctor asked again. At that, his voice sounded a bit distant and the room began to spin and blur once more. “Dr. Styles! You need to tell us what you want to do.”

Without a chance for him to speak up, Alexis’ monitor flatlined.

“Heart’s stopped.”

“Code blue! Code blue!” Screamed a nurse.

To his rescue, another nurse brought a heart shock machine to Harry. He grabbed the paddles. The woman assisted him and smeared the gel on them.

“Charge paddles to 200,” Harry said.

“Charged. Clear,” announced the nurse.

Harry delivered the shock but there was no change. The monitor was still flatlined.

“Still V-FIB. Nothing.”

“Charging. Nineteen seconds.”

“Charge them to 300,” said Harry.

“Three hundred,” repeated the nurse.

Harry shocked Alexis again, but still nothing. “Come on Alexis,” he muttered in despair, and knew that the best thing left to do was perform the CPR himself. He did for a good few seconds, but it seemed nothing he did was working.

“It’s sixty seconds. You’re supposed to administer another bug,” the doctor said.

“I don’t care!” Harry had tried to keep it cool and collected at first, but he knew that wasn’t working too well. There was too much pressure on him to stay perfectly calm. “Charge again! Charge the damn thing again!”

The nurses charged the machine once again and Alexis was shocked. Harry was sweating over his forehead now, swearing under his breath as he waited. To his utmost relief, the heart monitor started beeping again.

“Anything?”

“I see sinus rhythm.”

“Pressure’s returning.”

“Rate’s coming back.”

Harry shakily placed the paddles back on the contraption and sighed loudly. Out of nowhere, he heard loud footsteps come barging into the room. It was Dr. Tomlinson.

“What the hell happened here?” He questioned the people in the room. They stayed quiet, frightened by his sudden presence.

“She had a seizure and her heart stopped,” Harry answered, keeping his voice steady.

“A seizure? You were supposed to be monitoring her!” Louis shouted, obviously pissed off. Harry swallowed and didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I checked on her…” he started, but was immediately cut off. It was a shitty excuse anyway.

“I’ve got her. Just… just go, please,” Dr. Tomlinson glared at Harry, then averted his gaze and waved him off. Reluctantly, he did as he was told and exited the room. After all, he couldn’t argue with the attending. He faintly heard him ask the other nurses, “Somebody give me her… give me her chart, please?”

Harry hurried down the corridor, ashamed and hopeful that no one would catch him or ask too many questions. Unfortunately that wasn’t what was in store for him. Dr. Thirlwall met him and followed him even though he did not stop walking. He knew he was in for it.

“You get a 911, you page me immediately!” She scolded loudly. He tried his best to tune her out and ignored the shameful looks from his coworkers. “Not in the minutes it takes you to get to the emergency. Immediately! You’re on my team and if somebody dies it’s my ass, you understand me! Styles!”

He sped around the corner and was headed for the front of the building. He noticed that Perrie was following him curiously. “Harry?”

She ran after him only to walk out of the hospital and into the pouring rain. Harry bolted into the grass, bent over, and vomited. Perrie watched but said nothing and only felt sorry for him. He turned around, stood up straight, and acted as if nothing was wrong.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone. Ever,” he warned.

-

It was late at night, dark and gloomy outside. Louis was faced with Alexis’ parents in the waiting room, explaining something difficult to them. He wasn’t sure if they would understand or have the patience to cooperate with him as they tried to care for Alexis.

“You said it was a seizure disorder,” Mr. Jones eventually spoke up. “Now you’re saying it isn’t?”

Louis rubbed his fingers over his eyes trying not to get so stressed out, but it wasn’t helping. “I’m saying that I don’t know.”

“What do you think it could be?” Mrs. Jones asked softly.

“I… don’t know.”

“When will you know?” said Mr. Jones.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t have an answer for you at the moment. Luckily Alexis is stable right now and…” He started but was quickly interrupted by the father.

“Wait a damn minute here! We came here because this hospital is supposed to be the best one in London! That’s my child in there. And you don’t have the audacity to stand there and tell me you don’t know!” He argued angrily.

Louis could not do anything helpful in that moment except nod. “Mr. Jones…”

“No!” He interrupted again. “I want someone else. A doctor who really knows what they’re doing. So please get me someone else – someone better than you!”

Louis didn’t want to cause a scene, but it was far too late for that. So, instead, calmly, he said, “Mr. Jones, I can assure you that I am working hard on Alexis’ case.”

Mr. Jones wrapped an arm around Mrs. Jones and held her close. She appeared to be on the verge of tears, but fought to keep them in. “Obviously not! If you were, you would be able to give the answers to our questions!”

-

It was early in the morning when the interns woke up at King’s Cross Hospital. They slept anywhere they could that night, just thankful if they could find an open spot on the beds. Now they were all gathered in the boardroom, patiently waiting. It was evident on all of their faces that they had each been through hell and back in that hospital in just one night. And yet, somehow, here they were again.

Well, everybody was drained except for Niall. He was grinning about something, not that anybody knew, and it was annoying the others. “What are you smiling at, 007?” Perrie snapped, obviously referring to the day before when he nearly killed a patient. Immediately the smile vanished from his face and he looked more ticked off than anything else.

“Sorry,” she winced. “I get mean when I’m tired.”

“You know what?” Niall asked, shrugging. “I don’t even care. And do you know why? Because I comforted a family and I get to hang out in the O.R. today. All is well.” The others just rolled their eyes at him.

“Does anybody know why we’re here?” Harry asked, off topic. To answer his question, Dr. Tomlinson stepped into the room.

“Well, good morning,” he addressed the interns brightly. A low good morning was murmured back. “I’m going to do something which is rare for a surgeon. I’m going to ask interns for help.” They looked around at each other and then leaned forward, now listening closely. “I’ve got this patient Alexis Jones, about fifteen years old, with multiple seizures. We’ve distinguished it’s not a seizing disorder since she’s been acting… a bit unusual recently. So, I need you all to do some research on the topic and possibly come up with a diagnosis. Whoever does can report back to me and scrub in on the surgery. Good luck.”

They all walked off in different directions, and Perrie jogged to catch up with Harry. They turned down a hallway as she yelled out, “Hey, Styles!”

Catching his attention, he turned to her. “What is it?”

“I want in on Tomlinson’s surgery. You’ve been the intern on Alexis since the start. You wanna work together? If we find the answer, we have a 50/50 chance of scrubbing in,” she offered.

Harry sighed. “I’ll work with you but I don’t want in on the surgery. You can have it.”

“Seriously?” she asked, chuckling. “It’s the biggest opportunity any intern will ever get, and you’re going to pass that up?”

“I don’t want to spend any more time with Tomlinson than I have to,” Harry muttered.

“What do you have against Tomlinson?” Perrie giggled, finding the thought silly.

Harry ignored her question and instead said, “If we find the answer the surgery is yours. Do you want to work together or not?”

Perrie beamed at him. “Deal.”

They worked together in the medical library of the hospital, flipping through so many books their heads hurt. Not even an hour after searching they groaned and so wanted to give up. This task seemed nearly impossible.

“So she doesn’t have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It’s not a tumor because her CT’s clean,” Perrie explained and sighed, looking at Harry. “Are you seriously not going to tell me why you won’t work with Tomlinson?”

“No,” he responded quickly and changed the subject. “What about infection?”

Perrie flipped through Alexis’ file, looking back and forth between the pages. “No… there’s no white count. She has no CT lesions. No fevers. Nothing in her spinal tap.” Still curious, she peered over her pile of books and at Harry again. “Just tell me.”

“Fine. But you can’t comment, make a face or react in any way,” he finally agreed, and Perrie stopped going through Alexis’ file. “We had sex.”

Harry glared at her, making sure she did what he said. She could keep a straight face pretty well. A little humiliated for telling her, he looked back down at his books.

“What about an aneurysm?” Perrie went on.

“No blood on the CT. No headaches.”

“Okay… there’s no drug use. No pregnancy. No trauma.” Once again, she stopped and glanced up at him. In a lower voice, she asked, “Was he good? I mean he looks like he would be. Was it any good?”

Once again Harry didn’t answer. He only said, “We’re out of answers. What if no one comes up with anything?”

“So you mean… what if she dies?” Perrie translated. Harry nodded. “Oh, this is going to sound really bad but I really wanted that surgery.”

Harry couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl. Her total existence would have been almost winning her stupid beauty pageant, and to him, that was foolish. He thought back to what she told him about her years as a pageant girl. How her favorite dress was the pink shiny one, her talent was something called rhythmic gymnastics…

“Wait a second,” Harry said before Perrie could say anything else. Realization had just dawned upon him. He stood up and gathered his things. “Come on, we need to tell Dr. Tomlinson.”

-

The two of them ran down the hall and caught Louis getting into an elevator. They had figured out what was wrong with her… or at least they were pretty sure of it. All they had left to do was converse with the doctor.

“Oh… Dr. Tomlinson! Just one moment, please,” Perrie shouted and stuck her hand in between the doors to keep them open. “Erm… Alexis competes in beauty pageants.”

“I know that, but we have to save her life anyway,” Louis smiled at her.

“Uh… well… she has no headaches, no neck pain, and her CT’s clean…” she added, trying to make it quick.

Louis looked impatient now, looking around at the other people in the elevator as they all waited for it to close.

“There’s no medical proof of an aneurysm,” she continued.

“Right.”

“But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?”

“There are no indicators,” he countered.

“Erm but she twisted her ankle a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant…” her voice trailed off when the doors began closing again but she pushed them apart to keep them open. 

“Okay, well I’m sure you’re trying to help…” Louis said, annoyed, and was about to press the elevator button again when Harry came up behind her and interrupted.

“She fell when she twisted her ankle. She fell.”

“It was no big deal,” Perrie finished for him. “Not even a bump on the head. You know, she got right back up… Iced her ankle and everything was fine but it was a fall so minor her doctor didn’t even think to mention it when I was taking her history.” She opened the doors again. “But… she did. She did fall.”

As the doors began shutting again, Dr. Tomlinson exclaimed, “Well you know what the chances are that a minor fall can burst into an aneurysm? One in a million! Literally.”

The doors then closed and Harry and Perrie looked at each other, a bit disappointed. They thought they had done everything right. Just as they started to walk away, they heard a ding and the elevator opened again. Dr. Tomlinson walked out and joined them.

“Well, let’s go,” he said.

“Where?” asked Perrie.

“To find out if Alexis is one in a million.”

-

In another room they were performing an angiogram on Alexis when Dr. Tomlinson noticed something on the screen and his eyes widened. “I’ll be damned,” he said, shaking his head and looked stunned. “It’s minor. But it’s there.” Perrie and Harry looked closer to the screen, unsure of what they were looking at. “It’s a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. She’s bleeding into her brain.”

They all looked pleased with themselves now that they knew what Alexis’ problem was, but they couldn’t stay there for long. She needed to be helped right away. The three of them quickly walked through the large hospital waiting area on the ground floor near the entrance.

“She could have gone her entire life without it ever being a problem,” Louis continued to say in his moment of pure disbelief.

“Right,” Perrie said, getting a little impatient.

“One tap in the right spot… and that could have been it for her.” They stopped at a nurse’s station where he asked for Alexis’ Jones chart. “Right, now I have to fix it. You two did great work. I’d love to stay and kiss your asses but I have to tell Alexis’ parents she’s having surgery.”

He was handed the chart and began looking through it but glanced up when he heard Perrie cough and clear her throat. “Uh… uh, Dr. Tomlinson, you said you’d pick someone to scrub in if we helped.”

“Oh, yes… Erm, I can’t take you both. It’s going to be a full house. Harry, I’ll see you in the O.R.” With that, he left the room.

Perrie looked at Harry, extremely shocked and upset. She, too, walked out with a huff of breath. “Wait… Perrie,” Harry called out apologetically to her, but she didn’t turn back around. He followed her into a deserted hallway where they would usually hang out. Jesy was sitting up against a bed, confused as to what was going on.

“I’ll… I’ll tell him I changed my mind,” he suggested, desperately looking for a way to change what just happened.

“You don’t have to do me any favors,” Perrie interrupted with a cold stare. “You did a cut throat thing. Deal with it. Don’t come to me to solve your problem.”

“I’m not… I’m…”

“Oh yes you are!” Perrie retorted, now furious. “You know what, screw you. I don’t get picked for surgeries because I slept with my boss! Some of us have to earn what we get.” She stormed away and left Harry there, overcome with guilt and sorrowfulness.

“What the hell is she talking about?” Jesy asked but he didn’t answer her and instead just turned the other way and walked off.

-

In a small hospital room, Dr. Tomlinson was shaving Alexis’ head for her surgery. She was fast asleep when Harry entered, barely making a noise.

“Promised I’d make her look cool,” Louis said as Harry smiled. “Apparently being a bald beauty queen is the worst thing that happened in the history of the world.”

Harry stood there silently, a million thoughts going through his head at once. One in particular stood out, though, and he couldn’t help but ask. “Did you choose me for the surgery because I slept with you?”

“Yes.” Harry looked at him sternly which only caused Louis to laugh. “Lighten up, will you? I’m kidding.”

“I’m not going to scrub in for surgery,” Harry refused politely. “You should ask Perrie. She really wants it.”

Louis looked at Harry with soft eyes. “You’re Alexis’ doctor, and on your first day with very little training you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through. You…” he shook his head and continued shaving her hair. “You shouldn’t let the fact that we had sex get in the way of you taking your shot.”

-

Harry looked on from the nurse’s station in a ward only to see Liam Payne, chief of surgery, checking on Michael’s post-op patient. He was in there as well.

“She’s still short of breath,” Liam said. “Did you get an ABG or a chest film?”

“Uh sir yes I did,” he answered quickly.

“And what did you see?” Dr. Payne asked, raising an eyebrow out of curiosity.

“Well… erm… I had a lot of patients last…”

Liam interrupted him to say, “Name the common causes of post-op fever.”

“Uh it’s just…” Michael went to look through the patient’s chart, but Dr. Payne stood there impatiently.

“From your head. Not a book. Don’t look it up. Learn it! It should be memorized in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever. Now.” His voice was calm but Harry could tell he was about to flip.

“Uh… ah… the common causes of post-op…” Michael stuttered, scratching at the back of his head.

Liam, not wasting any time, turned to the other interns in the ward. “Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?” He called out loudly. People looked around at each other but shrugged and stayed silent. Finally, Harry spoke out.

“Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five W’s. Most of the time it’s wind, splinting, or pneumonia. Pneumonia is easy to assume. Especially if you’re too busy to do the tests,” he answered directly to Dr. Payne, who looked impressed himself and glanced at Michael who only looked down at the ground, embarrassed.

“What do you think is wrong with the patient in 4B?” He pondered.

“The fourth W. Walking. I think she’s a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolus.”

“How would you diagnose?”

“Spiral CT. VQ scan. Provide O2. Dose with herapin and consult for an IVC filter,” Harry said quickly.

Liam turned to Michael, who nodded. “Do as he says. And then tell your resident that I want you off this case.” He began walking off, but once he passed Harry he stopped and spoke to him. “Good job, intern. Welcome to the game.”

Harry, pleased with himself, grinned at the doctor. Maybe he wasn’t so screwed after all.

-

It was nighttime, and Harry was standing in the O.R. with the other doctors, ready to scrub in on Alexis’ surgery. Many interns were in the viewing balcony, leaning over anxiously, including Niall and Dr. Malik.

“All right, everybody,” Dr. Tomlinson said to the whole group as people helped him to put his equipment on. “It’s a beautiful night to save lives. Let’s have some fun.”

Louis began to perform the surgery as Harry watched silently to himself, thinking. In all honesty, he couldn’t think of one reason why he wanted to be a surgeon, but he sure could think of a hundred reasons why he should quit. There were lives in their hands. But sometimes… there would be a moment where it was more than just a game…

Harry perked up when he saw Dr. Tomlinson nod and gesture for him to take a closer look. Unsure, he quickly glanced up at Perrie and all the other interns in the observation deck looking back down at him. Making a bold move, he stepped over and looked through the microscope to see the lesion in Alexis’ brain.

He could quit, he thought to himself again. But this is what he lived for. He wasn’t going to turn that up for anything.

-

Harry sat by himself dazed and happily in an empty hallway just after the surgery. Suddenly, Perrie burst through the door and stopped abruptly when she noticed Harry. She cleared her throat unsteadily.

“It was a good surgery,” she remarked.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

As if things weren’t already awkward enough, Perrie placed her hands in her lap and took a seat beside Harry. “Look… we don’t have to do that thing where I say something and you say something and then somebody cries and there’s like a moment…”

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“Good. You should get some sleep, by the way. You look like crap,” she noted, standing up again and smirking.

“I definitely look better than you,” Harry teased.

“Don’t think that’s possible, Styles,” she retorted and he rolled his eyes.

Just as she left him alone again, he watched as Dr. Tomlinson entered through a door to a nurse’s station right across from Harry. Harry just stared at him for a while.

“That was amazing,” Harry finally heard himself say.

Louis spun around and saw him, the corners of his eyes crinkling like they usually did when he smiled. “Hmm,” he hummed with a small nod.

“You practice on cadavers,” he continued. “You observe. And you think you know what you’re gonna feel like standing over that table but… that was such a high. I don’t know why anybody does drugs.”

Louis just smiled broadly and nodded in agreement again. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, smiling back shyly.

Sadly breaking the moment they shared, Louis said softly, trailing off, “I should… ah… go do this…”

“You should,” Harry responded awkwardly and took a step back.

“I’ll see you around,” Dr. Tomlinson announced, and ambled off in the other direction.

-

So, Harry made it through his first shift. It wasn’t at all what he expected but he was glad to say he survived it. He could just decide not to come back tomorrow… but now that he had friends by his side, and an opportunity too great to pass up, maybe he wasn’t in as deep trouble as he thought he would be. For a surgeon in training, he wasn’t too shabby after all.

“Ya comin’?” He heard Niall call out from across the parking lot, where he stood with Perrie and Jesy by their cars. 

Harry gave a small nod in his direction and they went back to talking as they were before. In turn, he glanced back around at the sight of the King’s Cross Hospital building, with its welcoming glowing lights shining from the many windows. Maybe he just would come back for another day. Just one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: anything in these types of quotations ( ' ) is Harry's thoughts. It might get a little confusing because it wouldn't let me italicize, so that's all you need to know. :-)

'It’s all about lines. The finishing line at the end of a residency. Waiting in line for a chance at the operating table. And, of course, the most important line: the one separating you from the people you work with. 

It’s important not to get too familiar, but boundaries are necessary between you and the rest of the world. You just have to pray like hell that no one will cross them.'

The sun was rising over the King’s Cross Hospital as the interns arrived just in time. Harry, Niall and Jesy were talking among themselves in the main hallway while Harry held a cup of coffee in a tray. It was only necessary for him to have. It was impossible to be a good intern without caffeine.

“Why do you put up posters for roommates if you don’t want roommates?” Jesy asked unexpectedly, taking Harry by surprise.

He sighed, running a hand back through his thick curly hair, which was a thing he found himself doing a lot lately in a moment of frustration. It was true; he had rejected practically every candidate he had for a new roommate. He had put up posters all over the locker room, even. “I do want roommates, as a matter of fact. We’re together 100 hours a week, do you really want to live together, too?”

The three of them saw Perrie striding over to their group and the suspicious expression on her face when she noticed the coffee. “Oh, I see you bring bribes now, huh?” She asked, mostly to Harry.

“My mum irons my scrubs. I have to get out of there,” Niall said, sort of in a haze, like he wasn’t really talking to anybody.

“It’s not a bribe,” Harry huffed to Perrie, who just raised her eyebrows even higher. He whirled around to Niall and went on, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Look, I can put down last, first and deposits…” Niall stopped when he was interrupted by Perrie.

“It’s totally a bribe,” she snorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I can cook!” Jesy proposed over-excitedly. “And I’m an obsessive cleaner.”

“No,” Harry said firmly, like he had made up his mind. “I just want two normal strangers who I don’t have to talk to or be nice to. And it’s not a bribe. It’s a mocha latte.”

He grabbed his tray once again and rushed hastily over to a nurse’s station where Dr. Thirlwall stood, going over some charts. The others followed quickly behind, curious.

“Niall, you’re running the code team,” Dr. Thirlwall began, flipping some files and not even glancing up once. “Harry, take the trauma pager. Perrie, deliver the weekend labs to the patients. Jesy, you’re on sutures.”

With that, she spun around and made her way to the stairs. Harry scrambled to her side once again, still holding the latte.

“Erm… Dr. Thirlwall, I was hoping to assist you in the O.R today…” His words cause her to stop in her tracks and face him. “Maybe do a minor procedure? I think I’m ready.” He held up the tray with the latte in her direction as an offering. “Mocha latte?”

Dr. Thirlwall appeared she was about to speak before she was immediately cut off by the rest of the group who had heard everything.

“If she gets to cut, I want to cut, too,” Perrie called out over the other two, beating them to it.

“Yeah, me too!” Jesy added on.

“I wouldn’t mind another shot. I mean if everybody else is,” Niall shrugged.

“Stop talking!” she demanded impatiently. “Every intern wants to perform their first surgery. That’s not your job. Do you know what your job is?” She paused and looked them all in the eye carefully before continuing. “To make your resident happy. Do I look happy? No. Why? Because my interns are whining. You know what will make me happy? Having the code team staffed, trauma pages answered, the weekend labs delivered and someone in the pit doing sutures!”

Dr. Thirlwall grabbed the mocha latte out of the tray Harry was still holding up and took a sip. Satisfied, she climbed up the rest of the stairs. 

“Mocha latte my ass,” Perrie hissed to Harry.

“Why are you all still standing there?” The interns looked up at the top of the stairs in surprise when they heard their resident’s voice again. “Move!”

At her demand they all scattered in various directions. So much for that.

-

Louis waited by himself for an elevator as he pressed buttons into his cell phone tiredly. He didn’t even manage to look up when Harry stepped deliberately in front of him, a large stack of patient files in his arms. There was a reason for this: mostly so that he didn’t have to face him, or talk to him, or interact with him in any way. That didn’t hold Louis back from saying something, though.

“London has ferry boats,” he said abruptly, stuffing his phone into his back pocket.

“Yes,” Harry responded, smiling and hating that he did so.

“I didn’t know that. I’ve been living here for six weeks. I didn’t know there were ferry boats.”

“London has rivers,” Harry said, sounding like more of a smartass than he intended.

“Hence the ferry boats,” Louis said, and Harry could tell he was grinning ear to ear even without looking at him. The elevator dinged and they both watched the doors slide open quietly. “Now I have to like it here. I wasn’t planning on liking it here. I’m from Doncaster, so I’m practically genetically engineered to dislike the city.” God, he just wouldn’t shut up, would he? Everyone cleared the elevator, leaving it to just them two when they entered. Just great. “I have a thing for ferry boats.”

The doors finally closed and this time Louis stood slightly in front of Harry as they both faced the exit. The silence was awkward, even unbearable. Harry needed to say something.

“I’m not going out with you,” he blurted, regretting the words once they left his mouth.

“Did I ask you to go out with me?” Louis replied casually, looking briefly over his shoulder at him, but he didn’t say a word in response, so he turned back. He grinned at his next words. “Do you want to go out with me?”

“I’m not dating you. And I’m definitely not sleeping with you again. You’re my boss,” Harry proclaimed confidently, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.

“I’m your boss’ boss,” Louis countered thoughtfully.

“You’re my teacher. And my teacher’s teacher. And you’re my teacher,” Harry said quickly this time, putting emphasis on the last part.

“I’m your sister, I’m your daughter,” Louis mimicked.

“You’re sexually harassing me.”

“I’m riding an elevator.”

“Look… I’m drawing a line. The line is drawn. There’s a big line.”

Louis stood there, pondering that for a moment. “So this line, is it imaginary or do I need to get you a marker?”

This time Harry didn’t hold back. He just snapped, dropped his folders to the floor and pushed Louis roughly against the wall of the elevator. He pressed his lips against his and they kissed hungrily, like they needed it. They made out as the elevator went up the floors, one of Harry’s hands on Louis’ hip, the other running through his hair. The elevator dinged one last time and they broke apart just as quickly as they had been brought together.

The doors slid open once again to reveal Harry gathering his papers together awkwardly while Louis fixed his tousled hair, cheeks undeniably red. It was obvious they were both a bit flustered by the situation. He hurried out of the elevator to allow the other doctors who were patiently waiting on.

Dr. Tomlinson cleared his throat and called out, “We’ll talk later?”

The doors shut and Harry smirked to himself. He rushed down the hallway to a trauma room where a trauma nurse stood outside. She seemed anxious, peering around as if she was waiting for him.

“You the surgeon?” she asked when he was close enough.

“Yeah.”

“We’ve got a rape victim. Better get in there.”

Harry stumbled into the room, beeping noises from the monitors surrounding him and pounding in his brain. He looked down only to see a woman laying on a gurney, pretty bloodied up. There were patches of red on spontaneous parts of her white shirt and scratches on her face.

“Twenty-five year old female found down in the park,” an E.R. doctor proclaimed. “Status: post trauma. She came in with a GCS of 6 and BP eighty over sixty.”

All Harry could do was stare down at the woman in almost shock and bewilderness. He seemed to be frozen to the spot: again.

The E.R. doctor resumed, not waiting for any kind of reaction from him. “Examined significantly for blood head trauma, unequal breast sounds, right pupil is dilated. And she’s ready for an x-ray. You ready to roll? Hey!”

Snapping out of his daze, Harry mumbled, “Yeah,” and began to check the victim’s pupils. “Call ahead to clear CT. Let them known I’m coming. Load up the portable monitor. Call ‘respiratory’ for a ventilator. I’ll get x-rays while I’m down there.”

“I’ll get the vent,” the other doctor said.

-

Back in the O.R, Dr. Malik and Dr. Tomlinson hovered over the patient on the table, operating on her. It was the rape victim. There were many other doctors and interns in there as well, including Harry.

“She’s gonna spend a hell of a long time in recovery and rehab,” Dr. Tomlinson sighed, shaking his head.

“If she survives,” Dr. Malik said morbidly.

“What is she, like 5 feet 2 inches? One hundred pounds? And she’s still breathing after what this guy did to her? They should castrate him,” Dr. Tomlinson said.

“See how shredded her hands are?” Dr. Malik pointed out. “She tried to fight back.”

“Tried to? Rape kit came back negative. She kicked his ass.”

“So, we have a warrior among us, huh?” Dr. Malik remarked, more of a joke to break the tension, and the other doctors in the room chuckled except for Harry.

“Allison,” Harry muttered.

Zayn and Louis stopped what they were doing briefly to turn in Harry’s direction.

“Her name is Allison,” he continued.

Louis’ gaze softened as he looked at him, only his bright blue eyes showing over the mask covering the bottom half of his face. “Allison,” he repeated.

“I think I may have found the cause of our rupture,” Dr. Malik reported, interjecting the short moment the two of them had. Cautiously he pulled out a small but substantial bit of flesh and held it up for everyone to see, inspecting it curiously. “What is this? Does anyone know what this is?”

Harry just gaped at it in shock, not meaning to gasp, but he did anyway. “Oh my God…”

“What? Spit it out, Styles,” Dr. Malik ordered impatiently.

“She… bit it off,” Harry said uneasily, hoping they would catch his drift.

“Bit off what?”

“That’s… his… penis,” he finally said, eyes widening. The male doctors in the O.R. groaned in disgust at that comment. “She bit off his penis.”

“Oh,” Dr. Malik said, half groaning. With that, he dumped it into a nearby surgical pan.

-

The surgery was done and Louis and Zayn washed up in the scrub room afterward like they usually did. They were still in disbelief about the whole situation.

“Ouch. If she can fight the infection, she’ll be fine,” Zayn said, shuddering.

“That’s all going to depend on whether or not she’s going to wake up in the next seventy two hours.”

Zayn turned his sink off and dried his hands. “You know, we should get a drink later. You can tell me the long story of what makes a hot shot doctor head for the city.”

“A short story, actually,” Louis shrugged. “Your, ah, Chief of Surgery made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” He faked a smile and started to head out the door when Zayn stopped him.

Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, he asked, “Liam asked you to come?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Zayn waved it off.

“See you later.”

-

Niall and Perrie stood at a nurse’s station, organizing lab results casually while Niall tried to taunt her. Perrie simply ignored him and went on doing what she was supposed to.

“Do you know what the code team does? Saves lives. I shock a heart and someone lives to see another day. That’s upbeat. It’s like a glass half full,” he bragged, leaning back on the counter.

“Bambi, don’t say another word until after the hunter shoots your mother.”

He frowned. “I don’t like you.”

She exhaled heavily. “I have to deliver these lab results. It’ll take me all day to get through these.”

Dr. Thirlwall approached with cocky intern Michael from down the hall. Apparently she had overheard the last of Perrie’s sentence.

“Then get started.”

Perrie looked up, startled and struggled to come up with the right words. “Oh… ah, I wasn’t complaining. I, I…”

Dr. Thirlwall cut her off, bored. “Intern was reassigned, so he’s mine now. Have him shadow you for the day. Show him how I do things.”

She strolled away in time for Michael to hold out his hand to the other two. “Michael Clifford, nice to meet you.”

Perrie shook his hand loosely, not really meaning it. “The pig who insulted Harry, right? Yeah. I hate you on principle.”

She grabbed her things and trudged down the opposite hall, forcing Michael to follow and keep up with her. Niall stood by himself at the nurse’s station, perplexed.

“And you’re the pushy overbearing kiss ass,” Michael said, beaming. “Ah, I hate you, too.”

“Oh, this should be fun then,” Perrie murmured, rolling her eyes.

-

Harry ambled down a hallway carrying a red and white hazard cooler in one hand, ignoring the stares from his fellow co-workers. Instead he just focused on making it to Liam’s office. Once he stepped in he encountered the main office where his assistant Patricia sat, going over some paperwork.

“Hi, is the Chief in?” Harry asked.

Patricia nodded. “He’s on his way.” She looked pointedly at the cooler he held. “Is that it?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see it?” she inquired, and Harry seemed a little unsure for a moment. He watched as she changed her mind. “No, forget I asked.”

Just then, Liam entered the office cheerily and marched over to his desk. “Harry, it’s good to see you! Hey, I heard your mother was leaving Mao. She going back with the U.N.?”

It was true: Harry’s mother Anne used to be a surgeon at the King’s Cross Hospital, which, supposedly, was the best one there was in London. She was one of the most famous, and most successful, so obviously it was hard for him to live up to that expectation. Wherever he went he heard whispers about her and how he was her “prodigy of a son.” Practically everyone in the hospital looked up to her, even the Chief of Surgery.

But the truth? Harry hadn’t spoken to his mother in ten years. He lost contact with pretty much everyone in his family, especially after his parents’ divorce. That was when the fight broke out and put some bad blood between them. He wasn’t even sure where she was at this moment.

“She’s… ah, taking time off,” he lied.

“Writing another book I s’pose.”

Harry nodded slightly, and changed the subject. He gestured to the cooler. “Listen, they said to bring this to you. So?”

“Yes, for the police.”

“Right.” He placed it on a nearby table.

“When did the police say they were coming?” Liam asked Patricia.

“You know how slow they are, so he better take it with him,” she suggested.

“What?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

“You have to take it with you,” she repeated.

As if Harry wasn’t already surprised enough, Liam said, “Chain of custody rules. All medical matter under reign must stay with the person who collected it until it’s placed into police custody.”

“You collected the specimen, so you have custody,” Patricia said, grabbed some papers and left the room.

“Custody of a penis?” Harry asked, like it was ridiculous.

“Yes. Until the cops come for it.”

“Okay. Well, what am I supposed to do with the penis?”

Liam just stood there awkwardly, not sure of what to tell him.

-

Harry had been walking around the hospital all day with the cooler, and decided he needed a break. He took it to a nurse’s station where Niall sat, and placed it on the bench.

“What’s that?” He asked, intrigued, leaning over.

“You really wanna know?” 

Niall nodded, smiling.

“It’s a severed penis.”

At this he looked slightly ill. “Okay. I didn’t really wanna know.”

Perrie and Michael burst into the nurse’s station as well. “Why do I have to be the one that gets hugged?” she whined.

“What are you talking about?” Harry asked.

“Oh, just ask Michael here. He’ll tell you how all the patients have been clinging on to me all day,” she complained, practically collapsing on the bench.

“Because I don’t do that,” Michael said, like the answer was obvious. “Besides, you’re the ovarian sister here.”

“Did you just call me an ovarian sis?” Perrie demanded, taken aback. Michael simply nodded and walked off. “An ovarian sis? Since when does a possession of ovaries become an insult?”

“Harry is carrying around a penis in a jar,” Niall said like it was the most interesting thing ever.

“Oh, from the rape surgery?” Perrie peeked inside the cooler.

“Yeah, and it’s not a jar. It’s a cooler,” Harry corrected.

“Talk about taking a bite out of a crime,” Perrie grimaced, and headed off in the other direction.

Once the two of them were alone again, Niall asked, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Harry said quickly, pretending it was nothing. “Just sometimes seeing the victim is… a lot to take in.”

“I know what you mean,” Niall said quietly. After a moment of hesitation, he spoke, “You know what you need?”

“No,” Harry said firmly and gave him a look. “It’s sick and twisted. We said that last time was the last time.” Niall looked away guiltily at this. “You’ve been doing it without me?”

“C’mon, you can’t just say no!” Niall insisted.

“Do you know what would happen if anyone knew?” Harry asked, disappointed.

“I’m doing it. You can come with me or… you can stay here and be miserable,” he offered, and Harry chuckled.

-

The two of them were in the PEDS ward of the hospital now. Several little newborn babies lied in individual cots in a nursery. Through the window, Niall and Harry leaned over to get a better look inside. Niall cooed at them, making baby noises, and Harry laughed at his silliness.

“You are such a woman,” Harry giggled.

Niall instantly stopped when he said this but before he could comment his pager went off. “That’s a code. I gotta go.”

He left him alone still standing, staring at the babies. “You are really cute,” Harry said to one of them, smiling wide.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he caught one of the babies’ faces in the back turning blue but it faded back to normal within seconds. Harry looked around to see if anyone else had seen that to, but the halls were deserted. That definitely was not natural.

To take a closer look at the baby he saw went blue, he snuck into the nursery in hopes of figuring out what went wrong. A short woman with slick black hair stormed into the unit in utter shock, not even allowing Harry to get a second glance. She must’ve been the PEDS intern who ran this place.

“What are you doing in here?” She commanded.

“There… erm, there are no tests ordered. And the baby has a murmur,” Harry explained.

“I know.”

“He turned blue.”

The intern seemed annoyed. “You’re surgery. You’re not authorized to be in here. Do you know how much trouble you could get into for this?”

“Well, are you going to do any tests?”

She was definitely upset now. “It’s a benign systolic ejection murmur. It goes away with age.”

“So you’re not going to do any tests?” Harry demanded again, standing his ground.

“He’s not your patient. He’s not even on your service,” she grumbled.

“Are you sure it’s benign?” 

The intern gave up and held the door open for him instead. “I’m a doctor too you know. You should get out of here.”

Harry grabbed his cooler angrily and left the room.

-

In the mezzanine hallway, Liam approached Zayn from the opposite end. Zayn saw him and began to head in his direction.

“Chief! So you asked Tomlinson to come,” he said, not intending to sound like he was blaming anyone, or at least he hoped.

“He’s an old friend of mine,” Liam nodded.

Sarcastically, Zayn asked, “Ah, well he left his private practice because you asked?”

Liam stopped walking where he was. “Yes.”

“No other reason? Just a favor for an old friend?” Zayn shrugged.

“It’ll be years before I retire.”

“Chief of Surgery is mine. Chief of Surgery is mine,” Zayn said stiffly, putting emphasis on the last part.

“It was yours. Now I’m not so sure.”

He was angry now, his cheeks fuming. “No, I’m the best surgeon here with the lowest mortality rate. You can’t just bring some guy…”

Liam interrupted loudly for everyone nearby to hear. “Ask me why I’m not so sure about you?” There was a long pause. “Ask me why?”

Zayn stormed off and Liam walked the other way, upset and a little embarrassed.

-

It was the middle of the afternoon at King’s Cross Hospital, and Harry spent it by standing outside Allison’s ICU room peering through the glass window. She was heavily bandaged up and in a coma, so that gave him an excuse to be there. Behind him, Louis walked up, tired and aggravated.

“Harry, I’ve called every hospital in the county. I don’t know.” He walked into the room to get a check her out better. “Sooner or later the guy that did this is gonna seek medical attention and when he does, that penis you’re carrying around is gonna nail him.”

Harry bit his lip and contemplated this. “Where is her family?”

Louis shook his head. “Doesn’t have any.”

“No siblings?”

“No. Both parents are dead.” He left the room to update her patient chart. “She moved to London three weeks ago. Welcome to the city.”

Harry just continued to stare at her, and Louis noticed this. “Harry, you okay?”

Distracted, he stuttered, “Yeah, ‘m fine… I just have to do something. I have to go.”

“All right, I’ll sit with her,” Louis told him, and let him wander off.

-

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry spotted Dr. Malik walking down some stairs off the mezzanine. He chased him as swiftly as he could until he was finally caught up. Of course he still held the damn cooler.

“Dr. Malik?” He inquired.

“Mm?”

“There’s a baby up in PEDS and I saw him have a TETS spell. And I think I hear a murmur,” he said breathlessly.

“Hmm, did PEDS call us for a consultant?” He questioned.

“Actually… no, they’re not doing anything about it.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“If you could just go up and look at him…” He pleaded, not sure of what else to do.

Dr. Malik hummed in thought. “No, not without a PEDS consultant. I’m a busy man, Styles, and there are rules. Look, it’s not like I’m the Chief or something.”

-

Harry sat in the ground floor large waiting room of the hospital alone again, leaning back against some windows facing the parking lot and entry to the hospital. No one would find him there. Except, of course, Perrie, who just so happened to walk into the hospital through the entry sliding doors. Once she noticed him, she stood by him.

“What are you doing down here?” she posed.

“Just sitting here with my penis,” he answered easily. “What about you?”

“Hiding from Michael.”

“I kissed Louis,” Harry blurted, ashamed.

“You kissed Louis,” Perrie repeated slowly in a matter of fact tone.

“In the elevator.”

“Oh, you kissed him in the elevator.”

“I was having a bad day,” he winced. “I am having a bad day.”

“So what do you on your bad days? Make out with Dr. McDreamy?” Perrie suggested teasingly, and giggled. McDreamy? That was a new one. She pulled out a bag of chips and took a bite of one, officially entertained.

Harry sat up straighter now. “Well you know how carrying around a severed penis just makes everything seem so shiny and happy.”

She was about to say something witty and clever when there was a burst of commotion from outside in the parking lot. Perrie looked up and ran outside, Harry trailing not far behind. A man jumped out of a car all woozy with blood covering his shirt and pants- more specifically, his genital region. He collapsed onto the ground, leaving everyone in shock. A wave of doctors ran outside to check on him. Perrie and Harry stood close by, watching.

The two, along with a few other doctors, pushed a gurney with the man from the parking lot in the hospital hallway out of an elevator. Dr. Thirlwall met them around the corner.

“What do we have?” She interrogated.

“Take a look,” Harry told her.

“What?” She looked down, lifting up the sheets which covered the man, eyes wide. “Let’s get him to O.R 1. Harry, you call the Chief and let him know that we got the rapist.”

Harry grabbed his cooler off the gurney as the others hurried down the hall. Meanwhile he rushed in the other route.

-

Inside the O.R 1, the rapist was being operated on by Dr. Thirlwall and various others. Harry and Perrie stood in there as well, observing the procedure.

“I saw Allison,” Harry whispered so that only Perrie could hear. “You can’t believe the beating that she took. And then to see this?”

Dr. Thirwall called out to the general crowd of people in the operating room. “Why are we not attempting to re-attach the severed penis?”

Perrie cleared her throat before jumping to answer first. “Penises don’t slice. They tear. You can only re-attach with a clean cut. If she wanted to slice him off with a knife…”

“Besides, the digestive juices didn’t leave much of the flesh to work with,” Harry filled in for her.

“Right. So what do we do?” Thirlwall asked.

“Sew him up missing a large part of the family jewels,” Perrie offered.

“And his outlook?”

Harry answered this time. “He’ll be urinating out of a bag for a very, very long time.”

“Not to mention he’ll never be able to have sex again,” Perrie snorted.

“Oh, too bad,” Harry said sarcastically, in a bored tone.

“Shame,” Perrie nodded.

“Let’s all take a moment to grieve,” Dr. Thirlwall said, clearly not meaning a word of it. To a scrub nurse, she said, “Clamp.”

-

Dr. Malik wandered down the hall outside of a scrub room, where Liam was just finishing an O.R procedure. He picked up his speed and yelled out to him.

“Liam.”

At his name being said, Liam whirled around and let Zayn catch up to him. “Ah, we got the rapist. Stumbled right into the hospital,” he reported. He stopped in front of the sinks and washed his hands.

“Yeah, I heard.”

“What is it, Malik?” Liam sighed, clearly knowing something was up.

Zayn inhaled sharply and asked only one word: “Why?” 

“You really wanna know?” Liam quizzed, making sure he was truly positive.

“I want to know why you stopped thinking of me as your number one,” Zayn told him, bracing himself for the truth. “Liam, I do more in this hospital than any other surgeon…”

Liam interrupted before he could finish his sentence, voice cold. “You do only as much as is necessary. You never take an extra step. You never give an extra minute. You’re comfortable and arrogant. And it doesn’t impress me. You wanna be Chief? Earn it.”

He switched the faucet off, dried his hands briefly, and walked away. Zayn didn’t know whether he should be upset or not, but just reflected on what Liam said.

-

Perrie and Michael lounged in the usual deserted hallway hangout, away from everyone else. It was late, and they knew this. Their lives were being taken over by their job. Literally.

“My head hurts,” Michael moaned.

“Maybe it’s a tumor,” Perrie suggested hopefully.

“You wish I had a tumor,” he snickered.

“Look, I’d rip your face off if it meant I got to scrub in,” Perrie said truthfully.

They looked up to see Jesy enter now, carrying some food, a patient file, and a mug of tea. “I’ve been suturing all day. My hands are numb,” she grumbled, and took a seat next to Perrie. 

Niall shouted from the adjacent hallway where he was purchasing a bag of chips from a vending machine. “At least you’re helping people.”

“At least you get to practice freaking medicine,” Michael retorted. Perrie yawned.

“I had to send one of my patients away today. She was like camped out down there,” Jesy said, staring off into the distance.

Harry trekked over through the adjacent hallway and passed Niall, carrying his cooler. He took one glance at the packet of chips Niall held, and stole it from him. 

“Oh, poor Jesy. Turning away patients. Boo hoo,” Perrie mimicked.

Beside Michael, Harry collapsed onto the bench, exhausted. “So the police say they can’t send the shit crime scene guy down for hours. So I have to spend the night with the penis.”

A mischievous look formed on Michael’s face and he moved to speak, but Harry put his hand up before he could even utter a word. “Michael, don’t say it,” he warned.

“Oh, it was too easy anyway,” he huffed.

Niall finally joined the group and sat down next to Jesy. “Who here feels like they have no idea what they’re doing?” Everyone stuck a hand up in the air wearily. “I mean are we supposed to be learning something? Because I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.”

“Except how not to sleep,” Jesy muttered.

“You know, it’s like there’s this wall,” Perrie pointed out. “The attendings and the residents are over there being surgeons. And we’re over here being…”

“…Suturing, code running, lab delivering, penis minders,” Harry listed, tilting his head.

“I hate being an intern,” Michael said blatantly.

Dr. Thirlwall entered the room right then and gave the interns a long, judgmental look as if to say “shouldn’t you be working now.” They all scrambled after a few seconds and headed out, getting back to their jobs.

-

Back at the PEDS nursery, Harry came across the parents of the boy that turned blue. They looked at their son through the glass window happily, chuckling and murmuring to each other. Harry didn’t want to interrupt them or anything, but he walked over.

“Hi,” he introduced himself.

“Hi,” the mother said.

“Is he yours?” Harry asked, gesturing to the baby.

“Yeah,” she grinned.

“He’s adorable,” he told them, beaming.

“Thanks.”

He chatted with them for a while but didn’t seem to notice the same PEDS intern who happened to be checking on the babies. Annoyed, she stalked over and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You are so out of line,” she scoffed, and the parents turned around seeming upset and concerned.

“He said that the murmur might not be benign,” the mother said worriedly.

“I think that we should do an echo to check,” Harry said.

“This is your career,” the intern reminded him, shaking her head, and going back into the nursery.

She came back out seconds later with her boss tagging along behind her, a pediatric doctor otherwise known as Dr. Kerr. She was a slim young woman with hazel green eyes and curly blonde hair. Her posture made her seem confident- maybe overly confident.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“If our baby is sick we want him treated. Now,” the mother demanded, almost on the verge of tears.

“Who said your baby was sick?”

“Him,” the PEDS intern pointed a blaming finger to Harry. “The surgical intern who has no business on our service.”

“Who authorized you to be here?” Dr. Kerr asked irritably.

“I was just actually…” Harry began, but stopped when Dr. Malik walked up behind him suddenly.

“I did.” He faced the parents. “Could you excuse us for a second?”

Dr. Malik trailed a few feet away with the pediatric doctor. Harry and the PEDS intern followed not far behind. “Are you messing with my intern, Dr. Kerr?”

“No, sir,” Dr. Kerr answered without hesitation.

“Give me the chart,” he ordered, taking the chart off of her.

The PEDS intern spoke up. “There’s nothing wrong with him. I checked.”

“Are you sure?” Dr. Malik asked curiously, not fully believing her.

“Yes.”

“You can guarantee he’s fine? You’re one hundred percent sure?” Dr. Malik repeated.

The intern remained silent at that. 

“How sure are you?” Dr. Kerr double checked, now not so sure herself.

“I don’t know. Seventy five percent,” she muttered.

“Not good enough. He’s my patient now,” Dr. Malik notified them, taking over. “That okay with you, Dr. K?”

“Absolutely,” Dr. Kerr responded without a doubt.

Shocked, the intern hissed, “He can’t just take our patient!”

“He’s an attending,” Dr. Kerr informed her, resigned.

“Which means I can do whatever I want,” Dr. Malik told the intern, smiling. He rejoined with the parents of the child and Harry did the same. “Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I’m Dr. Malik. Head of Cardio. We’re gonna run some tests and get you an answer within the hour. Styles.” He nodded to the parents. “Excuse me.”

The two of them turned away from the family and walked back down the hall. “Yes, Dr. Malik?” Harry asked.

“I want an EKG, chest x-ray and an echo,” he commanded quickly. “I don’t have all day.”

“You’re a busy man.”

“I’m a busy man,” Malik repeated.

-

It was only hours later that Harry encountered Dr. Malik once again, rounding the corner as Harry strode around the hospital with his cooler. “Well?” He asked curiously.

“Well, it’s a birth defect,” Dr. Malik informed him. “Tetralogy of fallot with pulmonary atresia. You were right. Book an O.R for tomorrow.”

“Thank you for backing me up on this,” Harry said, truly grateful for everything he had done.

“Woah, woah, wait. You were right. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again… going to the parents behind their doctor’s back, trying to steal a patient from another service, I will make your residency year hell on earth,” Dr. Malik cautioned him. He wasn’t just playing around.

-

Dr. Thirlwall stood by herself on the mezzanine balcony, gazing down at the floor below. All the doctors and nurses rushed around, and sometimes she just enjoyed standing above everyone else while they did their jobs. It was nice to have a break every once in a while. Out of nowhere, Zayn came up next to her and leaned over the rail.

“Do you think I’m too confident?” He asked her honestly.

“No,” she responded rather rapidly.

“Don’t lie,” he insisted.

She sighed heavily. “You are my boss.”

He nodded and then said reluctantly, “All right then, anything you say in the next thirty seconds is free. Starting from now.”

Dr. Thirlwall stayed there mute for a concise minute before she finally decided on what she was going to say. “I think you’re cocky. Arrogant, bossy and pushy. You also have a god complex. You never think about anybody but your damn self.”

Dr. Malik appeared to be put out by this. “But I…”

“But what?” Dr. Thirlwall snapped. “I still have twenty-two more seconds. I’m not done.” And there sure was no holding her back.

-

Back in the intern locker room, various interns were strewn about. Some were getting ready or organizing their things, or there were some like Niall who brushed his teeth and Perrie who lied half undressed on a bench.

“I need a drink, a man or a massage. Or a drunken massage by a man,” Perrie decided, staring up at the ceiling, entirely worn out. She sat up and threw on her blue intern top. Niall gazed distantly at himself in the mirror, not even bothering to fix his messy blonde hair. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I lost five patients on the code team today. I feel like the Angel of Death,” he told her, flinching.

“Niall, ninety-five percent of all code patients can’t be revived. Most of them are seriously dead before you get there,” Perrie explained to him.

“What?” He cried in disbelief and stopped in the middle of brushing to face her. “Why didn’t you tell me that when I was going on and on about how great it was going to be?”

“Cause you’re Niall and I’m Perrie,” she shrugged.

-

Harry sat next to the Johnson baby in a rocking chair as he had been the past few minutes. So far no one had barged in the nursery yet and told him to get out. The PEDS intern entered and joined him in silence.

“His heart surgery is scheduled for the morning.” She pursed her lips. “I really did think I was right, you know?”

“I know. We almost never are,” Harry agreed. “We’re interns. We’re not supposed to be right. And when we are, it’s completely shocking.”

“Are you?...” she began, voice trailing off. “I mean, being an intern do you feel…”

“Terrified,” Harry finished for her. “One hundred percent of the time.”

“Good. It’s not just me,” she smiled.

Harry half chuckled at that. “No.”

-

Louis sat at a computer at the nurse’s station outside Allison’s room, clicking around and typing some random things into it. Harry gripped his cooler in one hand and came face to face with him.

“How is she?” he asked curiously.

“No change,” Louis replied, frowning.

“Have you been here all night?”

“Mmm hmm. Yup,” Louis answered, rubbing his temples with his hands. “You know I have four sisters? Very girly, tons of kids. If I was in a coma they’d all be here. I’d want them here. Not having no one, I can’t imagine that.”

“I can,” Harry mumbled, now standing in front of Allison’s room, watching her through the glass.

“What are you talking about?” Louis asked, chuckling like the thought was ridiculous. “What about your mum? She’d be in here ordering all the surgeons around. She’d fly in these cowboys from Prague to do these amazing medical procedures, probably.”

“That’s true. I do have my mother.”

Making his way over from the sink, Louis walked up to Harry. In a more careful tone, aware of the people around them, he said, “So? We’re kissing but not dating?”

“I knew that was gonna come up.” Harry rolled his eyes.

Louis grinned. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the kissing. I’m all for the kissing. More kissing I say.”

“I have no idea what that was about,” Harry said, refusing to make eye contact with him.

“Is it going to happen again? Because if it is I’m gonna need to bring me breath mints.” He then lowered his voice. “Put a condom in my wallet.”

“Shut up now,” Harry whispered back, nudging him playfully.

Louis laughed. There was a brief but awkward silence until Harry said something again. “There’s this baby up in the nursery. He’s brand new. No one’s neglected him or damaged him yet. How do we get from here to there? Allison’s had someone beat the crap out of her. And she’s got nobody.”

The both stared for a while; Louis at Harry and Harry into the room. It didn’t last long, though, because before either of them could say another word, Allison’s monitor flatlined. At this, the both of them broke out of their trance and ran into the room within seconds. Harry pressed the code button instantly.

“Her ICP’s doubled. Get O.R prepped for a craniotomy,” Louis instructed, and Harry nodded, swallowing hard.

The code team burst into the room and began hovering over her, working on her. Harry watched from outside of the room once again, palms sweating. Really there was nothing he could do, he wasn’t even sure why he was so nervous.

He left after a few hesitant seconds, and instead decided to stand outside the O.R rooms near the O.R board, pretending like he was busy doing something. He grasped the cooler in his right hand and started twiddling his fingers like an idiot. Louis stepped outside of the O.R hall and began to pace around in a circle by Harry.

“Hey,” he said dryly, a hint of anxiousness in his voice. “I, ah, had to leave her scull flap off until the pressure in her brain goes down.”

“She’s not gonna make it, is she?” Harry asked, his heart falling.

“She’s gonna be fine,” Louis reassured him quickly.

“If she ever wakes up,” Harry sighed.

Louis nodded slightly. “If she ever wakes up.”

-

Another hour passed. The sun was setting outside, shining bright into the hospital. Louis walked down a hallway, coming out of a nearby patient’s room. He noticed Zayn there as well and called out to him out of curiosity.

“Dr. Malik!” He got his attention finally, Zayn’s dark eyes locked on his blue. “I’m off at 6. You wanna get that drink we talked about?”

“I don’t think so,” Zayn said without missing a beat, and not seeming sorry for it. He attempted to fix a loose strand of his somewhat disheveled hair by pushing it back, only causing it to fall out again, dragging against his forehead in the same way it was before.

“Well, what about tomorrow night?” Louis pondered, hopeful, but not trying to sound so desperate.

“Tomlinson, you should know that Liam promised Chief to both of us.” At this, Louis smiled knowingly. Zayn huffed. “But you knew that already?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Louis nodded, gesturing with the clipboard in his hand.

Zayn smiled. “You’re not the enemy. Just the competition.”

-

In the O.R room on the main floor, Dr. Malik carefully performed heart surgery on the Johnson baby. Harry stood a few feet back, peaking his head around to watch what was happening every chance he got. It was hard to see because of all the surgeons in his way, so he just stayed where he was silently, hoping he wasn’t disruptful.

“We’ll be using a median approach for a transventricular repair with a right ventriculostomy,” Malik declared to the doctors in the room, making sure to keep his eyes on the patient. “Fifteen blade please.”

“Here you go,” answered a scrub nurse, handing it over to him. He clenched it in his hand briefly before continuing.

“Styles!” Dr. Malik said abruptly, almost startling Harry.

“Yes, sir?”

“Go scrub in. When we’re finished cracking the baby’s chest I’ll let you hold the clamp,” he said, and Harry had to hold himself back from grinning like an idiot.

“Seriously?” He asked excitedly, like he couldn’t possibly believe it.

Dr. Malik didn’t sound that excited, what with the way he turned back to look at Harry with a hardened look on his face. “Don’t make me change my mind.”

“I’m going,” Harry reassured quickly, stepping down from his current spot in one swift movement.

-

Louis barged into the rapist’s patient room on the downstairs floor without any warning. He slammed the end of the bed and woke the man up, who was lying there groggily.

“I have good news and bad news,” Louis said with his utmost look of anger. “The good news is that Dr. Thirlwall stopped your bleeding. The bad news is we’ve given your penis to the cops. Have a nice life.”

With that short spiel, Louis gave his best fake smile, then exited the room. The last thing he saw before closing the door behind him was the man looking down to the bed where his hands were, and realizing they were handcuffed to the bedside.

-

Peering in at the rows of the newborn babies wrapped in blankets stood Harry, Jesy, Perrie and Niall. They all made silly noises and faces at them although they were all asleep. Occasionally one would wake up and start screaming, but for the most part, they couldn’t hear anything. They felt lucky they didn’t have to deal with the infants when they saw some of the nurses rushing in, even though they were extremely adorable. Through all of this, Harry stood with his back pressed against the glass, contemplating something for the longest time.

Eventually, he sighed. “Okay, fine. Niall and Jesy, you can move into the house.”

Niall immediately perked up at this and Jesy’s face brightened with excitement, the corners of her brown eyes creasing with happiness. Harry almost wanted to take it back, then realized how selfish that would be. In all truthfulness, he needed the roommates. And they were his friends, so obviously, how could he say no?

“Yes! Yes!” The both of them cheered in their victory, clapping hands and doing a terrible dance that Harry hoped he would never have to witness again.

“I can’t believe he caved,” Perrie scoffed, now turning her attention on him instead of the cradles in the room.

“Thank you,” Niall said energetically, still eager with joy.

Harry looked at Perrie now, surprised at himself. “I can’t believe I caved.”

“I blame the babies,” Perrie muttered. “They make you toxic.” She wandered away as Niall and Jesy continued to dance around and Harry rolled his eyes at them.

-

'At some point you have to make a decision. Boundaries don’t keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That’s how we’re made.

So you can waste your life drawing lines.

Or you can live your life crossing them.'

The clock ticked away until it was finally dark outside in London, the stars shining brightly over the hospital and all the people in it. Harry slid on his shoes and jacket as he placed everything else in his locker, preparing to go home. The end of another long day at the King’s Cross Hospital.

It was when he made his way over to the elevators and spotted Louis standing outside of them typing on his phone that he stopped in his tracks. Gathering himself together, he inhaled sharply and walked up to him. He noticed Louis look up from his phone for a split second and smile at his presence. He made sure once again that he was standing directly in front of him, just as he had done before.

'But there are some lines…'

“So, it’s intense,” Louis said, clearing his throat. “This thing I have for, uh, ferry boats, I mean.”

'… that are way too dangerous to cross.'

The corners of Harry’s lips tugged at a smirk right when Louis stuffed his cell into his pocket and suddenly they were facing each other.

“I’m so taking the stairs this time,” Harry shook his head, and walked away from him.

“You have no self control. It’s sad. Really,” Louis called after him and stepped into the elevator that had just opened.

Harry grinned as soon as he exited the hospital and saw Niall, Perrie and Jesy ambling in the parking lot only a few feet ahead of him. He jogged to catch up and they all joined in a conversation.

'Here’s what I know. If you’re willing to take the chance, the view from the other side is spectacular.'


	3. Chapter 3

‘We live our lives on the surgical unit. Seven days a week, fourteen hours a day. We’re more together than we are apart.

After a while… the ways of residency become the ways of life.

Number One. Always keep score. Number two. Do whatever you can to outsmart the other guy. And number three. Don’t make friends with the enemy.’

The rain pattered softly on the windowsill and for a while, everything was peaceful. Harry was fast asleep on his bed, which was in a complete disarray, snoring softly every so often. The moment was calm- that was, until his eyes fluttered open to find Jesy hovering over him with a cup of coffee in her hand. He yelped and almost jumped ten feet in the air, but instead looked more scared than pissed off.

“Niall’s room is bigger than mine,” she stated in a strident voice, like she had been up for hours fussing about it. 

Wearily, Harry took one glance at his alarm clock, which read 4:37 am. He rubbed his eyes and frowned, literally stumbling out of bed and almost falling flat on his face. He stormed down the hallway and had to listen to Jesy constantly complaining behind him.

“I have more clothes. I should have the bigger room,” she argued as he remained silent and trudged through the house.

Harry almost ran into Niall who stood at his room door with his arms crossed firmly over his chest, like he was protecting it. “I got here first,” he insisted grumpily.

“It’s Harry’s house, he should decide,” Jesy offered. Harry rolled his eyes at this and staggered down the hall with a smug look on his face. The other two hurried behind him to catch up, trailing only a couple feet away.

“Me room is like, two inches bigger than yours!” Niall whined.

“You have a bigger closet!” Jesy persisted.

“So? Why is everything always a competition?”

It went on like this even as Harry entered his laundry room and rummaged around for some clean clothes. He ignored them for the longest time until they finally stopped and started talking about something else.

From across the room, Jesy noted, “Everything is filled with Harry’s mum’s boxes.”

“Yeh, Harry, when is yer mum comin’ back, anyway?” Niall asked, looking at all the boxes sprawled throughout the room. Harry didn’t answer and instead made his way back upstairs, carrying his clothes. “’Cause maybe we can put her boxes in storage.”

“Or unpack a few things, make this place a bit more home-y,” Jesy suggested. “Some throw pillows, some laps, a few paintings.”

“Oh, paintings would be nice,” Niall nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. You have all this amazing stuff packed away. In the back hall, I found this box with like a hundred tapes of your mother performing these amazing medical procedures,” she said, sipping from her mug.

Harry walked down the hallway quickly and stepped into the bathroom before she could add anything.

“Really?” Niall said now, eyes widening. “We should watch them. Harry, do you want to watch—“

Not saying a word, Harry slammed the door in their faces. A split second later he opened it again, took the coffee from Jesy’s hands, and shut it behind him.

“Harry, do ya want some privacy?” Niall asked more quietly now, but the only effort Harry made was slumping against the other side of the door, gripping onto the coffee mug tightly.

-

Louis grinned as he approached Jade Thirlwall on a random street corner just a few blocks down from the hospital. They were both in their casual clothing, but the only difference was that Louis grasped a paper cup in his left hand, presumably from a nearby café. She appeared a bit anxious, looking around the road curiously and intensely focused.

“Morning, Dr. Thirlwall,” he said politely.

“Shut up,” Jade retorted, holding a hand up in front of her, clearly preoccupied.

“You realize that I’m an attending and you’re only a resident?” Louis reminded her, pressing the cup to his lips. “That you work for me, right?”

Jade disregarded the question and murmured to herself. “I know I’ve forgotten something. Something is happening today. I know I should know what it is, but I just can’t…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head.

“All right, nice talking with you, Dr. Thirlwall,” he gestured and slowly turned around.

“It’s right in front of my face…”

Louis moved to walk across the street but was yanked back to the curb by Jade, who gasped loudly. Confused, he turned to his right to see several bikers race past them down the road. A few of them crashed into one another as Louis and Jade darted around, trying their best to avoid them.

“Ah, now I remember,” Jade said calmly, watching the other racers bike past.

-

Dr. Thirlwall weaved her way through the main floor at the King’s Cross Hospital, her assigned interns following behind. She was talking, mostly to herself, but also to them.

“Fools on bikes killing themselves. Natural selection is what it is,” she shook her head.

Michael perked an eyebrow up and hissed to Niall, “What’s up with the Nazi? Is she off her meds?”

“You never heard of the race?” Niall questioned in surprise.

The group passed the O.R board where doctors Liam, Zayn and Louis stood in front of it, staring at the organized schedule, studying their routines for the day.

“Excellent board. Well-timed, balanced, efficient,” Liam nodded as he looked on, seemingly impressed with their work. “If all goes well, we’ll have an early night.”

“Chief!” Dr. Thirlwall called out when she walked by. “Dead baby bike rice started twenty minutes ago.”

“All right people, dead baby bike race day!” Liam clapped his hands together, pleased. Everyone around him started moving, getting to their positions.

At the pit, Thirlwall’s group hopped off and waited for instructions. They dressed themselves in their yellow gowns and peered around eagerly for what was to come ahead for them. Like they were told from day one, they were to expect the unexpected.

“Every year this bar—“ Niall began excitedly.

“The Dead Baby Bar,” Harry interrupted.

“Every year, they hold this underground bike race,” Niall finished.

Jesy made a face. “Don’t you wonder why someone would name a bar something so disgusting?”

Perrie snickered. “Keep your panties on, Nancy Drew.”

“The race is completely illegal, and—“ Niall started again, but was cut off soon enough.

Harry spoke now. “Crazy, a bunch of bike messengers racing against traffic trying to beat each other for free shots of tequila.”

Michael nodded curiously. “All-out, no holds barred competition. Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, you would think that,” Jesy scoffed.

“The race doesn’t even have any rules,” Niall said fervently now, his blue eyes sparkling with delight. “Except eye gouging. No eye gouging.” Jesy chuckled.

“Oh, great, we’re going to be trapped in the Pit bandaging up idiots when we could be up in the O.R?” Perrie groaned. She wasn’t exactly one to look on the bright side of things.

Niall moved to help Jesy tie up the back of her gown. “What kind of people engage in a race that has, as its only rule, that you can’t rip out the eyeballs of another human being?” He walked up to Michael now, who also needed help.

“Men, Nialler, men,” Michael responded in a snarky tone, and at this Niall tore at his gown so it practically went off of him, instead of helping him. He pretended to look offended.

Dr. Thirlwall caught their attention with her next statement. “I need someone to get up to the O.R floor, the Chief needs a right hand.”

Instantly, practically everyone’s hands in the room shot up, even including interns that weren’t a part of her group.

‘Oh, and yeah, number four. Everything. Everything is a competition.’

Looking quite resigned, Dr. Thirlwall yelled out, “Niall.” He was the only one pleased with himself while everyone else brought their hands down, annoyed.

“Okay, people, the rules of trauma,” Jade spoke up again, focusing everyone back to her. Next she spit out a whole bunch of rules one by one that went too fast for Harry to even understand. “Don’t mingle with the E.R interns, they don’t know their ass from their esophagus. Sew fast, discharge fast, take bodies up to the O.R yesterday. And don’t let me catch you fighting over patients. Got it? Come on, let’s go.”

On her command, the interns rushed past her and into the Pit. Injured bodies lay everywhere on all the cots, blood stains on their clothing as they groaned out in pain. The doctors just stood there, taking in the scene and watching it unfold.

“Oh, it’s like candy, but with blood, which is so much better,” Perrie remarked, and immediately took off to find a patient.

“Oh, my God…” Jesy breathed.

A person looking pretty shoddy sat in a wheelchair brought inside by paramedics. Their face twisted up in pain and then shock when Perrie yelled, “Mine!”

She dashed over as soon as Jesy ran after and cried out, “No, I saw him first!”

‘Whoever said that winning wasn’t everything… never held a scalpel.’

“Ooh, I’ll take that guy,” Harry’s face lit up when he noticed the most interesting patient sitting on a bed close by. Nail spokes shot out of his abdomen, and he couldn’t imagine how painful that must be.

Apparently Michael had heard him talking to himself and said, “No, you’ll have to beat me to him first.”

They both shoved against each other in a hurry and lunged their way over obstacles in their path to get there. The man, whose name was supposedly Viper, sat there patiently and grunted at the slightest movement of the nails in his stomach. His brown hair was slightly messed up along with the sweatband on top, and some dried blood was stained on his forehead.

Impatiently, Michael pushed the curtains separating them from the patient shut and turned to Harry. “Head’s he’s mine, tails he’s yours.”

“Why do you get to be heads?” He whispered irritably and crossed his arms. 

Michael rolled his eyes and just went to flip the coin on his hand. They both watched it intensely and Harry cheered when it landed on tails. “Ha. He’s mine. There are plenty of other cases, y’know.”

“So go get one. I was here first,” Michael persisted, not leaving his spot.

Harry almost wanted to laugh at that instant. “I am not backing down so I can do sutures all day while you’re up in the O.R. This is a surgical case, and you know it.”

“It’s superficial,” Michael corrected him. “I mean, it’s cool, but it’s superficial.”

“How do you know those things didn’t rupture his peritoneum?”

“Because he’s sitting up, and he’s sitting there talking to us!”

Viper yanked back the curtain at this point, still waiting there. He had a strong accent, probably from a more distant part of England. “’Allo. Excuse me, I was wondering if you could take these out and sew me up, so I can go and win my race?”

“Well, we can’t just pull them out, I mean, we—“ Harry started, but never got to finish, because as soon as he did, Michael pulled out a spoke in only a matter of seconds.

“Ow,” Viper groaned as the last one came out. “Oh, wicked.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Harry stuttered in disbelief.

“It’s a superficial wound,” Michael said calmly, making his point by handing him the spokes. “Sew him up, and let him finish his race.”

“You…you just…”

“Ah, good man,” Viper thanked him and Michael left them alone.

-

Harry sat in the adjacent hallway to the Pit stitching up Viper’s wound wordlessly. It was more quiet now that they were in a different room, but he definitely wouldn’t say peaceful- outside he could still hear all the commotion going on in the trauma room. Needless to say, Harry felt slightly uncomfortable, like he could feel the guy checking him out. It wasn’t a part of his imagination, he totally was. 

Anyway, he couldn’t help it if Viper, if that even was his real name, was a pretty good-looking lad. He was cute, in a manly way, and sure found Harry attractive as well from the way he would not stop talking to him.

“Ah, you got a nice touch,” he winced as Harry tugged on a string a bit too rough and brushed his hand through his own short brown hair. “You have beautiful eyes, by the way. I like people with nice eyes.”

“Seriously, do you think you have a shot here?” Harry asked, smirking as he stopped what he was doing and looked up at him.

“I like to think I’ve got a shot anywhere,” Viper replied confidently, showing off his white teeth in a grin.

“Oh.”

“Mmm.”

“Look, you really have to let me take you for some tests; run a CT. You could have internal bleeding,” Harry claimed, desperately trying to change the subject.

“No, thank you,” Viper said casually as Harry finished up the last of his stitches. “I have a race to get back to.”

“Why? You can’t win now anyway.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t cross the finish line,” Viper retorted persistently. “There’s a party at the finish line.” He leaned in closer to Harry’s ear now, whispering. “Wanna meet me there?”

“One test. A CT. I’ll have you out of here in an hour,” Harry promised, choosing to pretend he hadn’t heard his question.

“Can’t do it, gotta go,” Viper clicked his tongue impatiently, restraining himself from standing up.

Harry shrugged. “Okay, well, you realize that you’re leaving against medical advice and that I strongly urge you to stay.”

“The frat guy said I could go,” he insisted. Clearly he did not want to lose this battle. The stupid bike race was something he was passionate about.

“The frat guy is an arse,” Harry chimed, shaking his head. Once he had cleaned up what he had sewn, he placed his materials on a nearby table and grabbed a piece of paper on it. “Okay, well, you have to sign an AMA form.”

“Darlin’, I will do anything you want me to,” Viper obliged, hiding his obvious smile. Harry rolled his eyes. “C’mere.” At last he snatched the paper and the pen and signed his name.

Not acting like he was in any pain at all, Viper hopped off the bed and almost walked out the door. That was, until he whirled around like he had forgotten something, and latched his mouth onto Harry’s.

Harry froze and threw his two hands up in front of him as Viper kissed him for only a few seconds. When it was over, he backed out the door and beamed proudly as he announced, “That was for good luck. Don’t worry, love, you’ll see me again.”

“For your sake, I hope not!” Harry yelled after him, and soon felt his cheeks warming up from the heat of the kiss.

Confused and a little overwhelmed, he began to fix up the sheets on the bed that Viper had left. He glanced up for a second only to come face to face with Louis who stood behind the door, looking at him through the window disapprovingly and a bit shocked. He had seen everything. Harry immediately paled, embarrassed, and moved to exit until the door opened so quickly that he stopped and almost ran into Louis.

Biting back a smile, Harry demanded, “What do you want?”

“You make out with patients now?” Louis countered, raising his eyebrows.

“What, are you jealous?” Harry teased, stripping the bed of the sheets entirely and tossing them into a bin.

“No. I don’t get jealous,” he responded, sounding more like he was trying to reassure himself than he was Harry.

“We had sex, once,” Harry reminded him like it didn’t matter. And shouldn’t matter.

“And we kissed, in an elevator,” Louis prompted, as if that were the most important topic.

“And we kissed in an elevator, once!” Harry repeated, trying to make it sound as insignificant as possible.

“No, seriously, I mean c’mon, go out with me,” Louis said like it was ridiculous that Harry hadn’t taken him up on the offer yet.

“No,” he answered, like he was firm on his decision.

Semi serious now, Louis went on. “You know, I almost died today. Yeh, I came like—“ he made a gesture with his hands “—this close. How would you feel if I died? And you didn’t get the chance to go out with me?”

Harry scoffed. “Get over yourself already.”

At this, Louis smiled, just a little one at first, but as it grew past his perfect cheekbones it slowly revealed his teeth. “Come on.”

Hesitant, Harry asked, “It’s the chase, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“The thrill of the chase. I’ve been wondering to myself, why are you so hell bent on getting me to go out with you? You know you’re my boss, you know it’s against the rules, you know I keep saying no,” Harry explained with a sly grin like he had finally figured it out. “It’s the chase.”

“Well, it’s fun, isn’t it?” Louis asked intently.

“You see? This is like a game to you. But not for me. Because unlike you, I still have something to prove.” Harry made a point of it and left the room, grateful to escape from there.

-

The brightness of the computer screen glared on Niall’s face as he squinted, typing on some keys and multitasking while looking over his patients’ charts. Michael stepped into the same nurse’s station and set down his chart, writing on it as well. He perked up an eyebrow out of curiosity when he figured something was up.

“What’re you doing?” Michael questioned him.

“Hiding,” Niall answered in a hushed voice. “There’s this patient I have, and he likes me.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Michael asked now, perplexed by the whole situation.

“He likes me likes me,” Niall emphasized.

“Go for it, man, get yours. I’m down with the rainbow,” Michael suggested, and Niall looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Oh. Are you not gay?”

“No.”

“Really?” Michael asked, amused now. “Mate, sorry.” Awkwardly, he grabbed his papers from the desk and fled the room just as Jesy and Perrie wandered in.

“Uh, Perrie?” Niall stuttered and scrambled to catch up to her from where he was seated. He grabbed the sleeve of her scrub shirt and lead her a little further away from Jesy. “Do ya, erm think…. Does Jesy think I’m gay?”

“Are you?” Perrie asked, genuinely astonished. 

“No,” Niall huffed for about the fifth time that day.

“Really?”

It was getting on his nerves now. He furrowed his eyebrows at her, frustrated, and she just snickered. He saw a nurse approach Jesy and Perrie practically ran to get there before she could say anything.

He heard snippets of their conversation; mostly Jesy talking about a John Doe who was unconscious, they wanted to harvest his organs for donation before they had to declare him…

Interested now, Niall walked up to them when the nurse left. “You have a potential donor?” Perrie nodded. “What’s his blood type?”

“Uh, O-neg,” Perrie answered quickly.

“My patient needs a donor, y’know, and this just may be his chance…” Niall began, pulling out a folder, and then realized he was speaking to nobody. The girls had ditched him, obviously, but for some odd reason, he was fine with it.

-

Harry strolled casually down the wide hallway on the second level of the hospital, but was stopped by Jesy who was standing in a nearby patient’s room, pacing frantically. He hurried over to her just as she began to call out to him.

“Harry, he’s crashing,” she said, biting her nails as he sprinted into the room. The monitor attached to the man lying on the bed, a John Doe, was flat lining eerily loudly. The sound pierced his ears as he thought.

“Well, what the hell are you doing?” He exclaimed. “Call the code!”

“I can’t,” she cried. “I’m not supposed to. He’s brain dead.”

Harry bit his bottom lip impatiently. “Well, Jesy, if he’s brain dead, you have to let him go.”

“No,” she maintained calmly. “It’s only been five hours and thirty-three minutes. He’s supposed to get six hours.”

The monitors slowly but surely returned to normal and Harry grabbed his chart. He flipped through it anxiously, hoping to find any sort of information.

“Well, we can’t do anything to help him live. It’s not our place to make that call.”

“He’s a person, we’re doctors.” Jesy sounded more determined now. “We should have every right to make that call. We can’t just stand here and do nothing while he dies. He has a right to the next twenty-seven minutes.”

“Screw it,” Harry sighed. “I’ll get the dopamine, you get the blood. We’ll transfuse him.”

-

The King’s Cross Hospital was slowly being surrounded with fog. There was hardly any sun, mostly rain as usual. The dreary day dragged on, it was hard to even tell if it was daytime or night. Climbing up the stairwell were Harry and Jesy attempting to sort things out and almost didn’t realize Perrie was passing them.

“He’s stable,” Harry informed her.

“For now,” Perrie said. “I had a radiologist look at his chest films. He has a traumatic aortic injury. He’s going to rupture and bleed out.”

“So he needs surgery,” Jesy confirmed.

“If he’s going to remain a viable organ donor, yeah.”

“If he’s going to live.”

“Jesy…” Perrie sighed.

“No! I’m not giving up on him,” she interrupted. “He has the surgery, he lives longer, that’s the point. So I’m going to help find the family, you guys find a way to get him into surgery.” She left the two of them and jogged up the stairs.

“She’s the vice president of fantasyland,” Perrie chuckled humorously when she was out of hearing range.

“So who do we go for the surgery? Thirlwall?” Harry questioned.

“No, we need to go higher than Thirlwall.” Together, they trudged up the steps, only this time, with a plan.

-

The two of them stood right outside the men’s bathroom where they knew Dr. Malik was taking a leak. Perrie cleared her throat and peaked in through the crack in the open door. “Dr. Malik?” She squeaked.

“Hello?!” Dr. Malik asked back, a little shocked she was eavesdropping on him.

“As the only actual man here, maybe I should talk to him,” Harry suggested when Perrie slammed the door shut, blushing.

“Dr. Malik, erm, I know you’re busy, but our John Doe needs an aortic repair,” Harry explicated hopefully.

“The guy from this morning? Isn’t he legally dead?”

“Well, yeah, he’s kinda still around? We gave him two units PRBCs and put him on pressers,” he said more specifically now.

“On whose orders?” 

They both stopped at this question. He finally flushed the toilet and jumped a little when the two of them opened the door to the bathroom and stepped inside.

“Mine,” said Harry.

“You gave a brain-dead John Doe a blood transfusion without consulting anyone. And now you want me to repair his heart?” Zayn said, laughing to himself.

“Well, yes,” Perrie murmured.

“You do enjoy crossing the line, don’t you?”

“He is an excellent candidate for organ donation,” Harry reminded him, shuffling his feet uncomfortably, losing faith that this would work.

Zayn switched off the faucet that he stood at. “I am a surgeon. I save lives. This guy is already dead. Now, this is the men’s room. Either whip one out or close the door.”

-

“You’re asking my advice?” Louis asked, amused.

Harry had shown up to him pleading for help in this whole situation, there was no way he could refuse.

“Yes,” Harry responded smugly.

“Now who’s chasing?” He chuckled fondly, licking his lips.

“Not funny. This is important,” Harry said on a more serious note.

“Okay. You want to get around Malik? You gotta find a way to get the Chief involved,” Louis told him pointedly. Jesy and Perrie watched from afar anxiously.

-

In the outdoor cafeteria of the hospital, Niall pulled back a chair from a lunch table and sat down, chewing on a ham sandwich he had bought. He wasn’t alone for long, though, because soon enough, Jesy, Perrie and Harry showed up, circling around him. In all truthfulness it was a bit frightening.

“What’d I do?” He asked in a small voice, mouth full.

“How close a match for the liver is your guy to our John Doe?” Harry inquired, as the three of them watched him eagerly.

“Very. Same type, same size. They couldn’t find a better match, why?”

“He’s the chief’s VIP, right?” Jesy asked now, more excited.

“Right.”

“How much would you kill to be in on a transplant surgery?” Perrie asked temptingly, but Niall caught on quickly.

“You underestimate me,” Niall said. “’M not your baby, I’m your colleague. Ya don’t have to manipulate me. If ya want something all ya have t’do is ask.”

“We want you to go over Malik's head to the Chief,” Jesy said undoubtedly.

“Ask me something easier.”

-

Just down the hall from the second O.R room, Perrie, Jesy and Harry stayed curiously watching Niall and Liam chat about the organ donation. They were practically on the edge of their seats; they were so grateful Niall had given in. Perrie was biting her nails; Jesy was fixing her hair anxiously.

“We are so going to hell. Malik is sending us straight to hell,” Harry commented, pacing back and forth, shoes clacking on the tile floor.

“On an express train,” Perrie added.

“If it works,” Jesy mumbled.

The three of them almost jumped when a voice questioned them from behind. “What’re you doing?” Harry recognized it immediately, Michael nosing around as usual.

In unison, they responded, “Nothing.”

Michael shrugged and stayed to watch anyway, not really sure what he was looking at. Malik strode by Liam and Niall until Liam stopped him and said something that peaked his curiosity.

“Yes,” Jesy grinned, eyes sparkling with hope.

Liam eventually left, Zayn following. Niall, now by himself, looked up to the four of them, including Jesy who stood there chuckling to herself.

“Oh, crap,” Perrie murmured.

They hurried away as quickly as possible, trying not to make it obvious what they had been doing; though anyone could tell, really. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael spotted Zayn just down the hall, not too far ahead.

He bounded after him, calling, “Dr. Malik! Dr. Malik!”

-

“Excellent work, sir. Excellent!” Michael exclaimed in awe as he watched Zayn attentively perform open heart surgery on the John Doe patient from beside him.

“Flawless. It’s a shame he’s brain dead. If he wasn’t, he’d be on his feet in a few days,” Zayn remarked, keeping his eyes trained on the body below him.

Not really paying attention to what he had to say, Michael added, “I’m amazed at what skill your hands have, it’s…”

Up above in the gallery, Harry, Niall, Perrie and Jesy sat and scoffed at his every word. There was no doubt he was sucking up to Zayn just to get the surgery, but they were not going to let that happen.

“I seriously hate that guy,” Perrie grunted, crossing her arms over her chest in pure disgust.

“Michael is vermin,” Harry agreed. “That surgery is ours.”

“At least Malik is doing the surgery,” Jesy said on a happier note. “I don’t care about Michael. Niall, you did good!”

Niall didn’t look so impressed. “I’m going to have to dodge Malik for the rest of my career.” He lowered his voice now. “He could kill me and make it look like an accident.”

A nurse entered the room and announced to the four of them, “The police called. They’ve identified your John Doe. His wife is on the way.”

Jesy exhaled a sigh of relief and she and Perrie left the gallery.

-

Standing above the now found man lying on the hospital bed, Jesy watched him. She was alone in the room, at least for now. He belonged to somebody. A husband, a brother, maybe a father, even. And now he had been discovered. She glanced up when people rushed into the room. Louis accompanied a young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, into the room.

“Oh, my god,” she stuttered, extremely upset and shocked. She rushed to his side and kneeled down. “Kevin…”

“It’s okay to…” Louis started, but was cut off by another one of her gasps.

“Oh, my god,” she cried, possibly even more upset than the last.

Louis awkwardly gestured to Jesy. “This is, ah, Dr. Nelson.”

The woman gave Jesy a small nod and she returned it kindly. Her eyes were wet with tears which she wiped off her face quickly.

“Now if you have any questions at all, please, please call me,” Louis bid her goodbye and exited, leaving them alone.

“Is there…” she sniffled. “Is there still a chance?”

“We can hold off til morning, but if there’s still no change we’d…” Jesy hesitated before saying the next part. “…we’d like to talk to you about organ donation.”

-

Harry shut his locker loudly just as he finished throwing on the last of his normal clothes. No scrubs as of right now, and he felt refreshed. He was more than ready to go home. His pager beeped loudly and he bent over to check it. Just as he stood back up, Michael entered the locker room and sauntered over to his.

“God, I smell good. You know what it is?” He faced Harry proudly, grinning practically ear to ear. “It’s the smell of open heart surgery.” Harry shot him an icy look as he took in a long deep breath in a way to show off. “It’s awesome, just awesome. You gotta smell me.”

He walked up right behind him and basically wrapped his arms around him. Harry was fuming now. “I don’t want to smell you.”

“Oh, yes you do,” Michael insisted, not letting go.

In an instant, Harry had whirled around, yanked Michael by his shirt and slammed him against the lockers. His eyes widened like he did not believe what had just happened. 

“You have got to be kidding me!” Harry said, exasperated, still trying his best to keep Michael in his place. “I have more important things to deal with than you. I have roommates, and boy problems, and family problems.” Michael yawned, bored by his act, but that didn’t stop him. “You want to act like a little frat boy bitch? That’s fine. You want to take credit for your saves, and everybody else’s? That’s fine, too. Just stay out of his face.”

He was glaring into his eyes now, not letting up. The door opened to reveal a quite astonished Louis watching the both of them, but they didn’t notice. Harry grabbed Michael’s chin firmly so he could look directly at him. “And for the record, you smell like crap!” he finished, and let go.

Harry turned back to go to his locker as they both realized Louis had seen everything. He ignored him and just continued to his belongings. Louis stepped in a little further and motioned to Michael, perplexed, to say the least.

“He attacked me,” Michael blurted.

At this, Harry rushed to really attack Michael, but was stopped by Louis, who shouted, “Harry, Harry, Harry!” He grabbed his arms before he could reach Michael and pulled him back forcefully. To Michael now, he instructed, “You know, you might want to leave. Before I change my mind and let him beat you to a pulp with his tiny ineffectual fists.”

For the record, though, that could have been a lie. In reality, Harry was much larger than Louis, and could probably have beaten him up if he really wanted to. But Louis knew he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He guided Michael to the door, who made a ‘boo-hoo’ face at Harry before leaving. Louis shut the door, finally, and sighed. Harry just stared at him, breathing a little heavily. He didn’t thank him, or speak, or anything.

“What?” Louis asked, concerned.

“Nothing,” Harry responded firmly, grabbing his jacket from his locker and slamming it shut. Something had him ticked off. “It’s just…” He contemplated going on and gave Louis a long look. “Nothing.”

He moved to leave and Louis opened the door for him. Harry stopped once again to speak, still a bit out of breath. He seemed to change his mind, though, and bolted out.

-

“Ooh, this one is skin grafting!” Harry heard Jesy shout as he entered the townhouse. He looked over to see Jesy and Niall seated in the living room, rifling through various boxes which all contained videotapes. They were too invested in their searching to notice him come inside.

“Skin grafting?” Niall gaped. “No way! I’ve never seen that done before.”

Harry approached them carefully. “Are those my mother’s surgical tapes?”

“We should watch the skin grafting one first,” Niall told Jesy, ignoring his question.

“Where did all this stuff come from?” Harry demanded, slightly angry now.

“Oh, I unpacked some of your mother’s things,” Jesy answered. “I was upset, and when I’m upset I like to nest.”

Harry just stared for a moment, utterly surprised as they continued looking about. He wasted no time in taking down the pictures that had been placed around the room, tossing them carelessly back into the boxes.

“Ooh! Hemiplvectomy,” Jesy announced, grabbing another tape from the box.

Niall snatched it from her hands excitedly. “I think we should watch this one first.”

“No, no, we’re not watching my mother’s surgery tapes! We’re not unpacking boxes! We’re not having long conversations where we celebrate the moments of our lives,” Harry yelled at them and grabbed a beer off the table that had stained the dark wood. He handed it to Niall and added on, “And use a coaster!”

“I ordered Chinese food,” Niall replied innocently.

Harry stormed off up the stairs to his room and only stopped to call back, “I hate Chinese food!”

Both Jesy and Niall looked at each other and held in their laughter, but of course failed and started cracking up.

-

It was back to daytime, which meant working at the King’s Cross Hospital. Perrie and Harry walked down the sidewalk adjacent to the hospital, cups of coffee in hand.

Harry, of course, was ranting to her. “They’re everywhere. All the time. Jesy’s perky and Niall does this thing where he’s helpful and considerate. They share food and say things and move things, and they breathe. They’re like, happy.”

“Kick them out,” Perrie shrugged.

“I can’t kick them out. They just moved in. I asked them to move in,” Harry complained, drinking from his coffee.

“So what, you’re just going to repress everything in some deep dark twisted place until one day you snap and kill them?”

“Yep.”

“This is why we are friends,” Perrie said, beaming.

Just as they walked into the hospital, Michael showed up behind them. At the sound of his voice Harry instantly refrained himself from attacking him- physically or verbally.

“Why is the Nazi making us stay in the Pit two days in a row?” He asked.

“Leftovers,” Harry replied.

“Leftovers?”

“Gotta get the cyclists who were too drunk or too stupid or too scared to get themselves to a hospital yesterday,” Harry informed him as they continued down the hall.

“While meanwhile, she gets to do a freakin’ organ harvest,” Michael snorted and pointed to Perrie accusingly.

“Oh, that kills you, doesn’t it?” Perrie asked with a smirk.

“What?”

“That me – a woman – got the harvest.”

They stopped in front of an elevator as Michael rambled on. “No, it kills me that anyone got the harvest but me. Boobs do not factor into this equation. Unless you wanna show me yours.”

Harry and Perrie exchanged looks. “I should just become a lesbian,” Perrie said and Harry laughed.

-

They entered the Pit and immediately Harry noticed a familiar face. Viper sat in a waiting room close by looking sickly.

“What’s Viper doing here?” Harry hissed to Michael, who shrugged.

“Probably crashed his bike again,” he suggested.

“How long has he been waiting?”

“Dunno, I’m busy on real cases. He’s all yours.”

Harry cautiously made his way over to Viper, looking paler than ever. “Viper? Viper?”

He clutched onto his side and didn’t look up at him or even make eye contact. He looked like he was going to throw up, or something even worse.

“Are you okay?” Harry wavered, about to crouch down, until he began to couch loudly and attempted to stand up. Harry didn’t catch him in time and he fell to the ground, unconscious. A stream of blood flowed out of his mouth and Harry called out for help.

He lifted up his shirt to reveal that the stitches have been ripped open and were bleeding. The whole area was extremely swollen and large like a bump. Harry was panicked and a little dazed.

Some doctors lifted Viper onto a gurney and Harry climbed on top, trying to hold his wound closed, since there was no other way. That didn’t stop the blood from pouring out, though, staining their clothes. Michael watched from nearby, mostly stunned.

“Call up to the O.R and tell them we’re coming. And page Dr. Thirlwall,” Harry said calmly to the trauma nurse, who hurried off.

“Michael, let’s go,” Harry demanded. He seemed to be frozen to the spot. “Michael! Push the damn gurney!”

It took a second but he snapped into action and rolled the gurney quickly out of the Pit. “Somebody get the elevator!” Michael yelled, and he rolled it inside with the help of another nurse.

“Hurry. I don’t know how long I can keep this wound closed,” Harry said shakily, doing his best. They watched as the numbers on the elevator ticked up slowly, his heart racing. “Move faster, damn it!”

The doors opened. The gurney was being wheeled into an O.R where the surgical team was prepping, including Dr. Thirlwall. Harry was still straddling Viper, not really having any choice if he was going to keep him alive.

“Well, this is a new one,” Dr. Thirlwall cleared her throat. “Somebody get him off my patient.” Harry climbed down at her request. “Ah, Harry, go get cleaned up and scrub in. Michael, get back downstairs.”

“Yeah, but I helped,” Michael argued in annoyance.

“Helped?” Dr. Thirlwall scoffed. “Yeah, they tell me down in the Pit that you only want to take the hot cases. In every pack of interns there’s always one fool that’s running around trying to show off and Michael, this time that fool is you. Get out.”

He hastily obeyed and stormed out of the O.R.

-

A large group of men, all tattooed and pierced, waited in the lobby. They were presumably Viper’s friends, and they were all joking around and laughing loudly.

“This lovely group’s his friends,” Dr. Thirlwall said to Harry and coughed. To the group, she asked, “Uh, you all belong to…” She hissed to Harry, “What’s his name?”

“Viper.”

“Viper?”

“Yeh, we were in the race,” one of the larger men said.

“How is he, ‘s he okay?” another asked curiously.

Many voices chimed in until Dr. Thirlwall shut them up by saying something to them. “Is he okay? No. No, he is not okay, at all. He hurled his body down a concrete mountain at full speed for no good reason.” The friends looked scared now, all silent and attentive. “Yeah, yeah, I know you all pierce yourselves and smoke up and generally treat your bodies like your grungy arses can’t break down.” She became more worked up now, not holding back. “But, hey, that’s fine. You want to kill yourselves, flying down a concrete mountain, go to it, but there are other people walking, people driving, people trying to live their lives on that concrete mountain, and one of them got his brain scrambled today because one of you little sniffling no good snot rag—“

Harry interrupted her and cleared his throat. This was getting a bit out of hand. “Dr. Thirlwall.”

She ignored him and turned back to the crowd. “Yeah, so okay, no! Your friend Viper, as far as I’m concerned, is not okay.”

In a fit of anger, she left his friends looking a bit frightened and startled by her commotion.

Picking up where she left off, Harry told them, “She’s, erm, really tired, but Viper’s gonna make it. He’s gonna live.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

-

Harry stood in the locker room once again, packing up his things. It was no surprise when Louis stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. Harry looked up when he began to speak.

“It’s not the chase,” Louis said.

“What?”

“You and me. It’s not the thrill of the chase. It’s not a game.” He walked closer to him now, smiling so that his eyes crinkled. “It’s your tiny ineffectual fists.”

Harry snorted. “Tiny and ineffectual? Please. We both know that’s not true.”

“And your hair.”

“My hair?” He smiled.

Louis nodded. “Smells good. And you’re very, very bossy. Keeps me in line.”

After a minute of awkwardness and them just looking at each other, Harry chuckled. “I’m still not going out with you.”

Louis shrugged and grinned. “You say that now.”

Harry just shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Bye, Louis.” He left the room.

-

‘There’s another way to survive this competition. A way that no one ever seems to tell you about. One you have to learn for yourself. Number five. It’s not about the race at all. There are no winners or losers. Victories are counted by the number of lives saved.’

It was nighttime and the stars sparkled bright above Harry as he opened the door to his house, hearing loud voices from inside. He instantly saw Perrie, Jesy and Niall sprawled out on the couches, stuffing their faces with food and watching one of his mum’s surgical tapes.

“Oh, okay, this is the best part.” Jesy sat up straighter now. “Watch. This is where she pulls a block of skin down over the face.”

They suddenly noticed Harry in the doorframe and looked at him with wide eyes at what he might say or do. 

“We were—“ Niall scrambled for the remote, about to pause the TV and placed his beer on a coaster.

“Hi,” Harry greeted them with a small smile.

“We were just… ah… Perrie made us,” Niall searched for an answer, and settled on that one.

Perrie shot him a disapproving look from across the room, mouth dropped open.

‘And once in a while, if you’re smart, the life you save could be your own.’

“What are we watching?” Harry asked, dropping his bag to the floor and taking a seat between Niall and Jesy. He grabbed the remote and un-paused it. “Ooh. This is the one where my mother—“

“—Literally pulls this guy’s face off!” Jesy finished for him.

“Yeah.” He grabbed some popcorn and tossed it in his mouth as they watched intently for a bit.

“Come on!” Niall shouted, like he was watching a football game or something.

“Augh!” Jesy cried, completely disgusted and amazed at the same time.

“Holy crap!” Perrie yelled, and they all joined in a circle of laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

‘Intimacy is a four-syllable word for: “Here are my heart and soul. Please grind them into hamburger and enjoy.” It’s both desired and feared, difficult to live with, and impossible to live without.

Intimacy also comes attached to life’s three R’s: Relatives, Romance and Roommates. There are some things you can’t escape. And other things you just don’t want to know.’

Harry stood tiredly in the kitchen, flipping through pages of a worn out scrapbook which he had kept in one of the cardboard boxes all this time. He stopped briefly at one page that showed a picture of a young boy with curly hair sitting proudly on a shiny new bicycle, giving two thumbs up. On either side of him were an older man and woman who couldn’t have looked happier. He smiled to himself and brushed his finger over the page, memories flooding back to him. This was interrupted when he heard a sudden commotion of noise from above.

“Erm, excuse me! Excuse me!” Niall shouted from the shower, only his face peering out from behind the curtain. Jesy had taken it upon herself to just saunter in the bathroom only in a pajama shirt and underwear. Oblivious to the whole situation, she grabbed her toothbrush and exited without saying a word.

Niall peeked out again. “Is that my toothbrush?” He exclaimed.

Jesy wandered downstairs, continuing to brush her teeth. She stopped by Harry in the kitchen. “Coffee?”

-

4:30 a.m. Another day at work. Harry parked his car in the parking lot at the King’s Cross Hospital and tried his best to ignore the blatant arguing between his two friends.

“You don’t understand,” Niall was explaining. “Me gonads, you ovaries.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Jesy said. “We are out of tampons.”

“You’re parading through the bathroom in your underwear when I’m naked in the shower!” Niall called out as the three of them walked across the nearly empty lot.

“Can you add it to your list, please?” Jesy asked, ignoring him.

“What?”

Jesy shrugged. “Tampons.”

Niall was yelling now, frustrated. “I am a man! I don’t buy girl products! I don’t want you walking in while I’m in the shower, and I don’t want to see you in yer underwear.”

Harry snorted. “It’s really no big deal, Niall. Grow up.”

“Yeh, well, why don’t you buy ‘em, then?” Niall demanded, frowning.

“Because it’s your turn.”

“It doesn’t bother me, okay? Look at me in my underwear, Niall. Take your time. It’s no big deal,” Jesy suggested with a grin. Harry bit his lip in an effort not to laugh.

They finally made it into the intern locker room where everyone was already conversing and changing, already ready for pre-rounds. Harry kept to himself but still observed Jesy and Niall taking out their frustration on each other.

Dr. Thirlwall entered the room, prepared for the day. “You’re the first person they see in the morning. You say please. You say thank you. You apologize for waking them up.”

As soon as she finished her speech, Michael rushed into the room, obviously late. He earned a glare from her but stayed silent, only to let her finish speaking.

“You make them feel good about you. Why is that important? ‘Cause then they’ll talk to you and tell you what’s wrong. Why is that important? Because then you can tell your attending what they need to know during rounds.” She wasn’t finished there. “And why is that important? Because if you make your resident look bad, she’ll torture you until you beg for your mummy. Now get out there. I want pre-rounds done by 5:30 a.m.”

“Morning, Dr. Model,” Michael greeted Jesy.

“Dr. Evil Spawn,” she acknowledged.

Michael whipped out his flashlight and shined it on her stomach. “Ooh, nice tat. They airbrush that out for catalogs?”

“I don’t know,” Jesy retorted, pulling her shirt over her head. “What do they do for the 666 on your skull?”

A group of interns nearby chuckled at that, pointing at Michael and hiding their smiles. “Aw, shut up, lads, would you?”

“Hey, Mikey, watch your mouth,” one of the younger interns, Luke, said. He was tall and slim, with blonde hair. Harry recognized him from the first day. He usually had a lip ring on, but had to take it off for work. It was clear he and Michael were previously friends, from the way they shook hands and stayed near each other most of the time. He had his whole group of Aussie mates with him to terrorize everyone.

On a new note, Harry said to Perrie, “I better get good patients today. Yesterday I had two guys with colostomies who needed dressing changes every 15 minutes.”

“I’m gonna be in surgery,” Perrie said, hopeful, as she laced her shoe. “Today’s my day.”

“On what?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Like I’d tell you,” she snickered.

Harry kept his voice low. “What do you know?”

“I know that I was here at 4:00 and you didn’t get here till 4:30.”

“Tell me.”

“No. I’m not the one who’s screwing an attending,” Perrie retorted. She got up and left the room, only to have Harry follow close behind.

“I am not screw…” Of course, as soon as he turned out of the door, he bumped right into Louis. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You’re here early.”

The two of them continued walking side by side. “I have a chordotomy at 5:00,” Louis said. “I’ll be out at 6:00. I thought I might buy you breakfast before your rounds.”

“I’ve already eaten,” Harry insisted.

“What’d you have?” Louis asked curiously.

“None of your business.”

“Are you a cereal person? Straight out of the box? Or all fruit and fiber-y?” He laughed at this. “Pancakes? Do you like pancakes?”

“Fine, leftover grilled cheese. Curiosity satisfied?” Harry rolled his eyes.

“That’s sad. It’s pathetic. A good day starts with a good breakfast.”

Harry stopped in his tracks and changed the subject. “Look, I’m not being seen with you in this hospital. Learn it, live it. It’s unprofessional.”

“I’m just an attending getting to know one of his interns,” Louis said.

“He slept with the intern,” Harry disputed.

“Barely knew him.”

“And it should stay that way.”

Louis paused. “You want me to be professional? I’ll be professional.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Then that’s what you get.”

“You’re gonna be late for your chordotomy.”

Louis smiled. “Nice talking to you, Dr. Styles.”

-

Jesy reluctantly switched on the light in her new patient’s room, hoping he wouldn’t kill her for waking him up so early. She pursed her lips. “Mr. Humphrey? Mr. Humphrey, I’m sorry to wake you.”

“Come on,” he groaned, pulling his sheets back up over him. “What time is it?”

“Ten after 5,” Jesy answered quickly with a glance down at her watch. “I’m sorry. I just need to do a brief exam. If you could sit up for one moment…” She helped him up, him still facing his back towards her. “This might be a little cold, so just take a deep breath.” He then spun around and saw her face and backed up a little bit, a look of horror struck upon him. “If you could just take a deep breath…”

“You’re not a doctor,” he said uneasily.

“I’m Dr. Nelson, but you can call me Jesy. I’ll be helping Dr. Thirlwall with your biopsy this morning.”

“No, I don’t think so, no,” he said, shaking his head vigorously and standing up now.

“Mr. Humphrey, this will just take a moment.”

He dug around hurriedly on his nightstand for a moment, until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a magazine and started flipping through the pages. “No, get me Dr. Thirlwall or Dr. Victor.”

“I just need to do a brief—“

Mr. Humphrey interrupted her to say, “You don’t need to do anything. Is this you?”

He stopped flipping and held up a photo spread in the magazine. Jesy froze when she saw what it was of. She was posed in her underwear, modeling for a company that she worked for months back.

When she didn’t respond, he did for her. “Huh? Is this you? It is, isn’t it? You know, get out of my room.”

“Mr. Humphrey—“

“Get out of my room,” he demanded, more serious now. Jesy knew not to make him more agitated, so she did as she was told and fled the room.

-

“There need to be some rules.”

Niall had eventually caught up to Harry in the halls and was trying to act as serious as possible when talking to him. Harry chuckled to himself. “Are you talking Amish rules? Because if you think you’re going to get Jesy to cover herself—“

“The amount of flesh exposed is not the point. You have to do something. It’s your house.”

“It’s my mother’s house,” Harry argued pointedly.

“Harry—“

“Do you like Jesy? Is that what this is about? Do you have a crush on Jesy?” Harry asked, smirking inevitably now.

Niall cleared his throat. “Jesy? No. I don’t like Jesy. Jesy? No way.”

Harry laughed, pushing open the door to the main lobby where Dr. Thirlwall stood. “Alright, Niall, whatever. I’ll keep your secret.”

“This is not… look, there just have to be some rules,” Niall stated, obviously flustered.

Once at their desk, Dr. Thirlwall started giving them some orders. “Horan, Styles, get Clifford down to Trauma. Tomlinson needs you.”

“Tomlinson’s in surgery,” Harry replied, confused.

“He got pulled before he could start,” Thirlwall explained, grabbing a clipboard and waiting for them to leave.

-

In the trauma room, Niall and Harry entered to find the rest of the doctors intently examining some X-rays on the walls. Harry tried not to gasp when he realized what they were all looking at.

“Those look like—“ he began, but Louis finished for him grimly.

“Nails.”

“I can’t see my hands,” the man on the table below them cried out. 

“Oh my God! He’s conscious,” Niall exclaimed, alarmed.

“Breathe deeply, Niall,” Michael mimicked. “You won’t pass out.”

“Use 4 mg’s of morphine,” Louis instructed. “Titrate up to 10. You know what? I don’t want him to move.”

“I can’t see,” the patient said again.

“It’s okay,” Harry reassured him, standing by his side. “We need you to be very still, Mr.—?“

Another doctor answered for him. “Moore, Walter Moore. He tripped and fell down a flight of stairs holding a nail gun.”

“Sick,” Michael said.

“Somehow he managed to miss a blood vessel,” Louis informed them. “That’s a minor miracle. Optic nerve’s been affected. Can you feel this?” He paused to squeeze Walter’s right leg. “Numbness on his right side. What’s our immediate concern?”

“Infection,” Harry said.

Louis nodded. “Right. I wanna be pulling these nails out in the next half-hour. I need a CT.”

“CT’s are down,” another doctor responded.

“What?”

“They exchanged them out last night,” the man said. “Computer’s crashed; have them back up by 1:00.”

Louis placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “So typical. So. What are the options?”

“An MRI?” Niall suggested.

“No!”

“Brilliant,” Michael snorted. “The man’s got seven nails in his head. Let’s put him in a giant magnet. You want films from three axis points and a C-arm in surgery.”

“Excellent!” Louis praised him. “You lads dig up research and find out if this has ever happened before. Go!”

“My wife, my wife, my wife,” Walter repeated anxiously.

“She’s on the way,” a doctor said.

“Your wife is on the way, Mr. Moore,” Harry said as kindly as possible.

“Stay with him, keep him calm and look for changes,” Louis told Harry, and Harry nodded.

“Ohh, I can’t see,” Walter cried out again.

“You’d say your health’s been good recently?” Harry asked, trying to change the subject.

“Maybe some headaches,” Walter said, unsure. “Nothing compared to now. Tricia, that’s my wife. Tricia, she’ll say, ‘Why do you think they call it a gun, moron?’ She hates the damn things.”

“With good reason,” Harry said, filling something out on his patient chart.

Louis entered the room with a small woman by his side who had a hand over her mouth, like she was in shock. “Baby?” she squeaked out.

“Tricia,” Walter sighed, relieved.

“You are in so much trouble,” Tricia giggled and sniffled, tears brimming at her eyes.

“Get a history from her before you scrub in,” Louis said more quietly to Harry, still keeping an eye on the couple conversing.

“Okay.”

“Thank you.”

-

“Twenty-three,” Niall announced from his computer beside Michael. “People have been accidentally shot in the head with nails twenty-three times.”

“One was attempted suicide, doesn’t count,” Michael dismissed.

“Oh, so he pointed a nail gun at his head on purpose?” Niall clarified. “That makes me feel better.”

“So, uh,” Michael started to say, keeping his voice down. “Does Nelson really walk around in her underwear?”

Niall thought hard about his answer before speaking. “Not all the time. I mean, some of the time, you know. But not all the time.”

“Sexy underwear?” Michael asked, intrigued.

“Yeh, I mean…”

“And she just lets you, uh, look at her?”

“Well, uh, yeh…”

“Like brother and sister.”

Niall furrowed his eyebrows together and stifled a laugh. “No, well, not like brother and sister. I don’t think of her as… my sister…”

“But they’re coming on to you.”

“Not exactly.”

“They don’t expect you to do anything,” Michael pointed out.

“No. But—“

“Like siblings. Just like siblings,” Michael said, leaning back in his chair and smiling wickedly.

-

Dr. Thirlwall entered the scrub room where Jesy stood outside the door to Mr. Humphrey’s room. She stared down at the floor and at her fingernails but glanced up when she saw Jade making her way over.

“Is he prepped?” she asked.

“I think they’re doing it right now,” Jesy answered.

“You think? He’s having a prostate biopsy. Trust me. If you’d been in there, you’d know,” Dr. Thirlwall told her with a small chuckle. She stepped into the room quickly, but stopped and waited for Jesy, who entered with a sigh after a minute.

“Okay, Mr. Humphrey, we’re gonna get started,” Dr. Thirlwall alerted him.

“Get her out of here,” Mr. Humphrey demanded, pointing to Jesy. “I want her out of here! Get her out of here!”

“Wait, Mr. Humphrey,” Dr. Thirlwall interrupted him, perplexed.

“Just you go!” Mr. Humphrey was screaming at her. “Now! Just go now!”

Jesy rushed out without saying a word, leaving Dr. Thirlwall to make him relax.

Soon after, when Jade left the room and approached Jesy, she crossed her arms over her chest expectantly. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“Nothing,” Jesy waved it off immediately. “He’s probably just crazy or something.” More hushed now, she whispered, “Bethany Whisper.”

“What?”

“Bethany Whisper. I did a new Bethany Whisper lingerie ad,” she explained quickly. “He saw it in a magazine.”

“You’ve got time to pose for magazines?” Dr. Thirlwall questioned unapprovingly.

“No, the shoot was last year. It just came out.”

“So because he saw you in a thong?” Jade asked.

“It wasn’t a thong.”

“You’re hiding out in the hallway,” she reminded her.

“I think it might just be easier if you assign another intern.”

“Easy is not in your job description. You are a doctor. He is your patient. Biopsy these. If they come back positive, I expect to see you in surgery.” She paused. “Hey, you’re on this. You understand me?”

-

“Vertiginous or light-headedness?” Louis asked the other doctors in the scrub room where they prepared for his OR.

“Light-headed,” Harry answered. “Sometimes he’d have to brace himself to get out of bed.”

“Could be a million things. Simple orthostasis. What?”

“What made him fall down the stairs with a nail gun?” Harry pondered.

“He said he tripped.”

“Something caused him to lose consciousness and fall down the stairs. He could have a tumor.”

Louis shrugged and picked up the phone. “Look, I have no idea why this guy’s still alive, let alone moving and talking. Not a clue. Let’s just get him through this before we start digging around for something else.” Into the phone now, he said, “Tomlinson. Twenty-three cases?”

“One was attempted suicide,” Michael said back.

“Yeah, that doesn’t count. Talk about procedure.”

Niall had the phone in his hands now. “Biggest problems were bleeding and infection but the odds improved with shorter surgery times.”

“Bottom line was get them out quickly and watch for bleeding,” Michael summarized.

“I got it. In other words, I’m on my own,” Louis said and hung up the phone.

In the research room, Niall got up and began to head out. He stopped and turned back to Michael, who was flipping through a magazine on the table. “Ya comin’?”

“Mate, I don’t need an escort. Go. Go ahead,” he gestured for him to leave and smiled to himself back down at the page in front of him. “Well, well, well. Dr. Bethany Whisper. That’s so nice.”

-

The entire team of doctors was in Walter’s OR room, even those in the gallery watching from above as Chief Payne gave an explanation on the patient.

“As you can see, the patient has shot seven nails directly into the skull without doing significant damage other than the optic nerve, and we may be able to say that,” Liam reported, using the screens to demonstrate. “The idea is to remove the nails at exactly the angle they entered. Any wiggle, and we risk doing more damage than when they went in.”

Up in the viewing section, Perrie recently entered and made her way by Niall. “Where are they? Move over.”

“They’re just pulling them out,” Niall responded eagerly, leaning forward more. “Hey, I heard you got a Whipple.”

“A maybe Whipple,” she corrected him. “Malik is running my bum off. Oh, man. Look at those films!”

“Maybe try to an eighty-seven,” a woman in the surgery room said while the other doctors went to work.

“Small increase then it will stabilize,” a man murmured.

Slowly and carefully, Louis successfully pulled out a nail. “Gelfoam.”

“Here you go,” a scrub nurse said.

“There goes the third grade,” Perrie whispered to Niall, fascinated by what was going on below.

“Dr. Edwards?” A voice from the doorway interrupted her. It was Dr. Malik, and he stood there patiently. “Did you put in the blood work?”

“Oh, right before I got here,” she said hastily.

“Hmm. Take her to Radiology for the MRI. Beep me when you’re done.” At this, Perrie sighed loudly. Zayn noticed and raised an eyebrow at her. “You want the Whipple, right?”

“Yeah.” Perrie gathered her things and ambled out of the room, where she encountered Jesy just about to enter. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Jesy brushed past her and took her spot next to Niall. “Here. My share of the grocery money. When are you going?”

He took the envelope from her and stuffed it in his pocket. “Tonight.”

“Okay, seriously, Niall. Please don’t—“

“Yeh, could we not talk about it here?” He asked impatiently, looking around to make sure no one was overhearing them.

“What, tampons?”

Niall blushed when he realized all the other surgeons on the bench were listening to them by now. “Did you not hear a word I said?” He hissed.

“You’re a man. We know.”

From nearby, Michael whistled. “Talk about shrinking the salamander.”

“Bleeding?” Louis inquired, prodding around in his workspace.

“It’s clean.”

“All right. Way to go, team. Good job, everybody,” he congratulated the other doctors in the room. “Thank you. I don’t think we made it worse. The big question is the optic nerve. We’ll know in the morning.”

“Should I order the MRI?” Harry asked.

“He needs to stabilize. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

-

In another hallway, Perrie approached Dr. Malik, nearly jogging. “Dr. Malik, I wanted to know if you’ve seen my patient’s labs.”

“I have.”

“They’re getting worse. The stent doesn’t seem to be helping her jaundice.”

“No.”

“Should we be doing something?”

“We are,” Zayn said, bored.

“Oh, I noticed you didn’t have the Whipple on the board. Do you want me to schedule it for you?” Perrie queried, tone hopeful.

“I want to see the results of her biopsy, and have a look at her overnight labs.”

“Overnight?”

“You’re on-call, right?”

“Um… sure, yeah,” Perrie supposed tentatively.

“Well, good. Stick with her.”

“Well, you’re still doing the surgery, right? Y-you’re still doing the Whipple?” Perrie swallowed, anxious.

“The woman has pancreatic cancer, Dr. Edwards. We’re gonna do something.”

“Okay.”

-

Back at Harry’s house, Niall was in the shower in the bathroom once again. Jesy stood in front of the mirror in her underwear, blatantly arguing with him.

“I reminded you before you went,” she said, rolling her eyes while combing through her wavy brown hair.

“I forgot when I got there,” Niall lied, doing his best to excuse himself from the conversation.

“No, no. You were so passive-aggressive.” Jesy opened the shower door on him and caught him completely off guard.

“Naked. I am naked in the shower,” Niall warned her, face paling.

“They’re just tampons, Niall. I really need tampons. God!” 

Harry entered the room to grab his toothbrush and basically tuned them out, rubbing his eyes groggily.

“Harry, will you tell him to buy the damn tampons!” Jesy pleaded, hands on her hips.

“You didn’t buy them?” Harry interrogated him, interested now.

“Men don’t buy tampons,” Niall stood his ground firmly and Harry started laughing.

“I don’t have a problem with buying them. Really. It’s not a big deal,” he said, squirting the toothpaste on his brush.

“If he can do it, you can do it!” Perrie said angrily. “And you know what, you better get used to it. I’m a woman. I have a vagina. Get used to it.”

“I am not your sister.”

-

The three of them were back in the hospital by 4:30 a.m. once again. Harry stifled a yawn when he ran into Louis in the main hallway.

“Grilled cheese again?” Louis asked with a grin.

“Cold pizza.”

“Is he awake?”

“Even better.”

“Really? Let’s see what his nurse says.” The two of them entered Walter’s room where he was accompanied by Tricia. “Hi, Tricia, Walter. How are you this morning?”

“Tell them what color my dress is, Walter,” Tricia encouraged him happily, grasping his hand.

“I’d know the answer to that even if I couldn’t see.”

-

“I’m taking the elevator,” Jesy informed Niall where they were walking together. “Take the stairs.”

“I was going to anyway.”

“Good!” She hurried over where the elevator door was about to close. “Hold it. Thank you.” Once inside, she became self-conscious when she noticed she was surrounded by men laughing. “What?”

On the door of the elevator, there was a picture of Jesy as Bethany Whisper from the spread in the magazine. Astonished, she ripped it off faster than she could speak, and hoped no one else saw it.

In another hallway, Jesy saw a commotion down by the locker rooms, where a bunch of doctors were gathered around and giggling. Curiously, she wandered over but was blocked by Niall before she could get in.

“Niall, stop.” She pushed him aside only to find pictures of the Bethany Whisper ad posted all over the walls. Around her there was whistling and cheering.

“Shh, shh, shh!” Came a familiar voice. Michael. “We have Bethany Whisper in our locker room. Oh, boy, I guess they do airbrush out the tattoo, don’t they?”

Jesy was furious now. “You want to see it? You really want to see it? Fine.” She began by taking off her coat. “Let’s look at that tattoo up close and personal, shall we?” Next she hauled off her shirt. “And what are these? Oh, my God! Breasts! How does anyone practice medicine hauling these things around!” She pulled her hair out of her ponytail. “And what do we have back here? Let’s see if I remember my anatomy.” She shimmied off her pants to reveal her underwear. “Glutes, right? Let’s study them, shall we? Gather around and check out the booty that put Jesy Nelson through med school. Have you had enough or should I continue? Because I have a few more very interesting tattoos.” Michael appeared ashamed now. “You want to call me Dr. Model? That’s fine. Just remember that while you’re sitting on 200 grand of student loans. I’m out of debt.”

“I’ll take them down,” Niall offered, but she pushed him aside and threw on her scrubs.

“Don’t bother.” Breathlessly, she stormed off in the opposite direction.

She made her way into Mr. Humphrey’s room, a Bethany Whisper picture in hand. She placed it down on his bedside table and gathered herself together.

“This is who I was. It has nothing to do with who I am now. I’m a physician, a surgeon. And I am just as qualified as any other intern on this floor. So, you’re just gonna have to get over your chauvinist crap and allow me to do my job.” She finished her rant and waited for his reply.

“I’m sure you’re a very good doctor,” he said.

“Then what is your problem?”

He sighed. “Look. I fantasized about you, about the woman in this photo, whoever she is. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a fact. Do you know what they’re gonna do to me today? I have cancer. And they’re gonna lift up my legs and expose me to the world and cut out my prostate and my nerves, effectively neuter me. So, is it hard to understand that I don’t want that woman who’s in the photo to witness my emasculation?”

-

“Have you seen her overnight labs?” Perrie asked Dr. Malik, who was trying his best to ignore her.

“I have.”

“Did you check her liver panel?”

“They’re not good.”

“No, they suck. She’s choking on bile. She’s jaundiced.”

“A very sick woman.”

Perrie bit her lip. “Why haven’t you scheduled the Whipple?”

“Well, are you a surgeon now?”

“I’m her cruise director, pushing her around all day. The woman is circling the drain. We need to do something.”

“I’ll take a look at her biopsy.”

“Screw the biopsy,” Perrie muttered.

“Dr. Edwards?” Zayn asked suspiciously. 

“Enough. You know… you know what I think? I think you’ve never intended to do the Whipple. I think that this entire thing has been bull, and you’re behaving like the only reason she’s in this hospital is to die.”

Zayn simply nodded and watched as Perrie realized the relevance of her words.

-

Walter Moore was taking his MRI as Louis and Harry observed closely.

“There. That’s a tumor,” Louis pointed. “It’s midline near the hypothalamus.”

“Damn,” Harry mumbled.

With Walter back in his room, they could finally explain to him the reality of the situation. Tricia stayed close by him, sitting and watching them nervously. Piecing his words together carefully, Louis said, “Best practice, probably to remove the tumor. ‘Probably’ because I can’t get it all. Ninety-nine percent, but not all of it. Radiation and chemo, you’re looking at maybe five to ten good years.”

“Let’s do it,” Walter said, not even thinking twice.

“You haven’t heard the downside,” Louis coughed. “See, the tumor is located in a part of your brain where your memory and your personality resides. And because of the fuzzy edges in this type of tumor, I have to cut out a lot. Walter, you stand a good chance of losing your memories. Of losing who you are.”

“Is there any other way?” Tricia asked wearily.

“The alternative is gamma or cyberknife treatment with focus radiation,” Louis explained. “It’s less evasive. There’s little chance of memory loss or him losing himself but it would only give Walter maybe three to five years.”

“Three to five years?” Tricia reiterated in a small voice.

Louis nodded. “This is an incredibly difficult decision. If you have any more questions or you need to talk to me, I’m here, okay?”

-

Outside the King’s Cross Hospital, Harry, Jesy and Perrie sat on a bench. Perrie was clearly upset about something.

“It’s a waste of a bed, and it’s a waste of my time,” she said, flipping through a magazine.

“Who are we talking about?” Harry chimed in.

“My patient, Liz Fallon. They brought her here to die.”

“Wouldn’t you want them to do the same thing for you?” Jesy pondered upon it.

“No!” Perrie bellowed. “You know what, I’d want the doctors to do everything they could. I’d want them to cut me open until the minute I die.”

“Sometimes doing everything can be worse than doing nothing,” Harry said, but Perrie was already on a different topic now, talking to no one in particular.

“You are eight feet tall. Your boobs are perfect. Your hair is down to there. If I were you I’d walk around naked all the time. I wouldn’t have a job. I wouldn’t have skills. I wouldn’t even know how to read. I’d just be naked,” she rambled.

“It’s makeup. It’s retouching,” Jesy rationalized.

“You get that we hate you, right?” Perrie asked.

Jesy laughed just before her pager beeped. “Thirlwall again.”

“You know what, any patient who wanks to his doctor’s pictures forfeits his rights,” Perrie said, continuing to skim the magazine. “You’re seriously not gonna give up the prostatectomy, are you? Jesy? Oh, forget it. You know, sometimes it is actually, you know, painful to be around you.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Dr. Thirlwall insisted when Jesy finally showed up, assisting Mr. Humphrey to get ready to go to the OR. “When I page, you answer. It’s not that difficult to understand. Horan answered his page. He’s doing your prep.” He was then wheeled out by another doctor. “If I hear the words Bethany Whisper one more time—“

“I can’t okay?” Jesy said. “I just… can’t. He doesn’t want me in there.”

“No, what he wants is to not have cancer,” Dr. Thirlwall contended. “What he wants is to be saved. You want to stay in the scrub room, that’s your choice.”

-

Just out of Walter’s room, Louis exited with, “All right. I’ll do my best,” and found Harry waiting close by. “Walter and Tricia want the surgery.”

“They want you to cut it out?” Harry clarified.

“Mm-hmm. It’s their decision.”

As soon as Louis left, Harry decided to take things into his own hands. He gestured for Tricia to talk to him, which she did. When they were eventually alone in the hall, Harry spoke.

“You need to consider what you’ll lose,” Harry reminded her. “What good is five years if he doesn’t joke about your omelets and he can’t remember seeing you in your favorite red dress?”

“It’s still five more years,” Tricia debated.

“You don’t understand. He’ll be there, but he won’t be Walter. He won’t even recognize you.”

She began to get teary-eyed, but maintained her argument. “This is our business.”

“You have no idea what this will do to you. Isn’t five good years better than ten bad ones?”

“Harry, what the hell are you doing?” Louis demanded, seeing what was happening.

“She needs to understand.”

“I do understand,” Tricia said defensively. “You think that I’m being selfish, that I don’t want to give him up.”

“I don’t,” Harry tried to say.

“This is Walter’s decision. And if it means ten bad years for me, fine. I’ll give him those years because I will give him whatever he wants.”

“Look, I am so sorry, Tricia,” Louis said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Just please forgive him. He’s an intern.”

She began to cry softly. “And if he doesn’t remember me, if he doesn’t remember what we are, he’s still my Walt. And I’ll remember for us both.”

“Okay, all right,” Louis said calmly.

-

In Mr. Humphrey’s scrub room, Niall was keeping track of the patient’s operation while Jesy stood outside the room. Every few minutes or so she would ask for an update.

“Where are they?” she asked.

“He’s resecting the prostate, coming up on the distal nerve,” Niall told her.

“You said, ‘I am not your sister.’ Did you feel like I was emasculating you?”

Niall pretended to scoff. “No. No, I’m too masculine to be emasculated.”

“I’m sorry,” Jesy apologized sincerely.

“Guess you put Dr. Model to rest.”

“Guess I did.”

Dr. Thirlwall stopped operating on the patient for a second and turned to the surgeon in the OR room with her. “Dr. Victor, I’m sorry, these are viable nerves. We should try and save them.”

“It’ll take at least an hour longer, and we may not get it all,” the doctor said, refusing.

“But his prognosis with chemo is nearly as good. And frankly, if you’re worried about missing your tea time, I’d be more than happy to finish.” Dr. Thirlwall was not about to back down from this, and once she wanted something, she more than always got her way. With that, Jesy stepped into the operating room. “Dr. Nelson.”

“Can we help you?” Dr. Victor asked.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Thirlwall,” Jesy said swiftly. “Dr. Victor, I agree with her. You just can’t… you have to save the nerves.”

“What?”

“The nerves, you have to save them.”

“Dr. Nelson, I can handle this,” Jade said carefully.

Jesy ignored her. “You told me the most important thing is giving the patient what they want. What Humphrey wants is his erection.”

Dr. Victor glared at Dr. Thirlwall. “She’s yours. You get her out.”

“Can’t do that, sir.”

“I’m going to tell Richard about both of you,” Dr. Victor threatened.

“You do that,” Dr. Thirlwall offered. “In the meantime, let’s pretend it’s you on this table and give this a try.”

-

‘I wish there were a rulebook for intimacy. Some kind of a guide that could tell you when you’ve crossed the line. It would be nice if you could see it coming. And I don’t know how you fit it on a map.

You take it where you can get it… and keep it as long as you can.

And as for rules?

Maybe there are none.

Maybe the rules of intimacy are something you have to define for yourself.’


End file.
